Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the Peninsula of Sinai

Abstract

Dr Carl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884) was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist considered the founder of modern Egyptology. In 1842 he was commissioned by King Frederick Wilhelm IV to lead an expedition to Egypt and Sudan to explore and record ancient Egyptian remains. The expedition included artists, surveyors and other specialists and spent three years recording monuments in Egypt, modern Sudan and the Sinai. The expedition conducted the first scientific studies of the pyramids of Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and Dashur. First published in 1852, this volume is a translation of 40 reports in the form of letters written by Lepsius to King Frederick Wilhem IV during the expedition, and translated by Kenneth R. H Mackenzie. They provide descriptions of many ancient Egyptian monuments which have since been lost or destroyed, and provide an engaging and frank account of the difficulties of supervising an archaeological expedition in Egypt at that time.