E.A. Wallis Budge

1857 - 1934

            E.A. Wallis Budge was the Curator of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum from 1894 to 1924. Along with his post at the British Museum, he was a Sometime Scholar of Christ’s College, a scholar at the University of Cambridge, Tyrwhitt, and a Hebrew Scholar. Best known for his numerous translator works, Budge collected a large number of Coptic, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Egyptian Papyri manuscripts. He was also involved in numerous archaeology digs in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Sudan.

            Budge is perhaps best known for translating The Egyptian Book of The Dead (also known as The Papyrus of Ani), as well as analyzing many of the practices of Egyptian religion, language and ritual. Of his written works, Budge made the first books oriented toward students of hieroglyphics. They consisted of translated texts and hieroglyphs, as well as a complete dictionary of hieroglyphs. In addition, his published works cover areas of Egyptian culture reaching from Egyptian religion, to Egyptian mythology, and magical practices. Budge was knighted in 1920. He died November 23, 1934 in London, England.

References:

http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/ani.htm, 2007, The Papyrus of Ani (The Egyptian Book of the Dead)

Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota