Gaston Maspero
| Gaston Maspero | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Gaston Camille Charles Maspero June 23, 1846 Paris |
| Died | June 30, 1916 (aged 70) Paris |
| Occupation | Egyptology |
| Children | Henri Maspero |
| Relatives | François Maspero, grandson |
Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero KCMG (June 23, 1846 – June 30, 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper.
Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia.
Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to Jewish parents of Italian origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic writing. It was not until his second year at the École normale in 1867 that Maspero met fellow Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, who was in Paris as commissioner for the Egyptian section of the Exposition universelle. Mariette gave him two newly discovered hieroglyphic texts of considerable difficulty to study, and the young self-taught scholar produced translations of them in less than a fortnight, a great feat in those days when Egyptology was still almost in its infancy. The publication of these texts in the same year established his academic reputation.
A short time was spent in assisting a gentleman in Peru who was seeking to prove an Aryan affinity for the dialects spoken by the Indians of that country to publish his research, but in 1868 Maspero was back in France at more profitable work. In 1869 he became a teacher (répétiteur) of Egyptian language and archeology at the École pratique des hautes études, and in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of Champollion at the Collège de France, succeeding Emmanuel de Rougé.
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