The first Egyptologist in the Museum (1836-1886)
In 1836, however, a most important acquisition was made by the
Museum - a young scholar, Samuel Birch, who was to become its first
serious Egyptologist. Until his death in 1885, he was tireless in
building up, organising, nurturing and publishing the rapidly
increasing Egyptian collections, making them available to the
general public and to the scholarly world through his many books
and articles. When he began his study of hieroglyphics and the
related hieratic script, it was little more than fifteen years
since the announcement by Champollion of the first results of
significance in decipherment. Birch was self-taught, but his mind
was disciplined and systematic, and it was not long before he was
able to contribute to the interpretation and translation of
Egyptian texts.
Under his direction, the Egyptian collections of the British
Museum became the base for serious Egyptology in Britain. Samuel
Birch was a desk-scholar. He never went to Egypt, and rarely
travelled outside England; but he corresponded with the leading
Egyptologists in Europe, and studied closely the collections in his
charge. He was not a vigorous collector, but he took opportunities
to acquire by purchase or through the generosity of donors,
important antiquities, especially papyri. One frequent visitor of
Egypt, specially encouraged by Birch, was the clergyman Greville
Chester. From him, by gift and purchase the Museum obtained many
hundreds of objects between 1864 and 1891.
This was the period before serious excavation by Europeans had
begun, and the value of Chester's material lay not only in its
diversity, but also in the fact that in many cases he carefully
recorded the provenances of objects. In his early years in the
Museum, Birch had been instrumental in having Egyptian papyri
transferred to the Department of Antiquities from the Department of
Manuscripts, and thereafter he made many useful additions to the
papyrus collection. In 1857, there came the Abbott Papyrus which
contained the official record of a royal commission to investigate
tomb robberies in Thebes in about 1125 BC; in 1863, the Rhind
Mathematical Papyrus which has provided rich information about
ancient Egyptian mathematics; in 1872, the Harris Papyri which
included the longest known papyrus roll (41 metres), the Great
Harris Papyrus which records donations to the temples of Egypt by
King Ramses III of the Twentieth Dynasty.
By the time Birch had completed his initial classification of
the Egyptian collections, the number of objects amounted to about
10,000. In 1866, on the break-up of the old Antiquities Department
he had become Keeper of a new Department of Oriental Antiquities,
which after his death was again reorganised and called the
Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. He lived just long
enough to witness the beginnings of excavation in Egypt by a
British organisation, the Egypt Exploration Fund. Birch was not a
supporter; he did not believe that objects found by foreign
excavators in Egypt would be allowed to leave the country. In that
he was mistaken. From their very first season at Tell el-Maskhuta
in the Eastern Delta in 1883 the Egypt Exploration Fund obtained a
share of their finds, of which two sculptures, a falcon and a
statue of an official, were presented to the Museum. Sadly, it was
too late for Birch to change his mind, and in 1885 he died.