Dominic Alexander Sebastian Montserrat (2 January 1964 – 23 September 2004) was a British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 egyptologist and papyrologist.

Life

Montserrat studied Egyptology

Egyptology

Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...

 at Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

 and received his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in Classics

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

 at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, specializing in Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

, Coptic

Coptic alphabet

The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language...

 and Egyptian

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

 Papyrology

Papyrology

Papyrology is the study of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., as preserved in manuscripts written on papyrus, the most common form of writing material in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome...

. From 1992 to 1999 he taught Classics at the University of Warwick

University of Warwick

The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

. Suffering since birth from hemophilia, his increasingly deteriorating health led Montserrat to resign from teaching in 1999 and took up a research post in the classics department of The Open University. In 2004, he died from the effects of his illness at the age of forty.

Despite his ill health Montserrat was remarkably productive in his brief scholarly life: he was a member of the committee of the Egypt Exploration Society

Egypt Exploration Society

The Egypt Exploration Society is the foremost learned society in the United Kingdom promoting the field of Egyptology....

, for which he published regularly, and curated

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

 the award-winning travelling exhibition Ancient Egypt: Digging For Dreams of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, England, which is part of University College LondonMuseums & Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects and ranks among some of the world's leading collections of Egyptian and Sudanese material...

. A wider audience saw him co-presenting the TV documentary series The Egyptian Detectives, a production of National Geographic Channel

National Geographic Channel

National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...

 and Channel Five.

In his 1996 debut book Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt Montserrat presented a broad study of ancient sexuality and its cultural manifestations in Greco-Roman

Greco-Roman world

The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...

 Egypt. His second book focused on the life and times of the 'heretic pharaoh' Akhenaten

Akhenaten

Akhenaten also spelled Echnaton,Ikhnaton,and Khuenaten;meaning "living spirit of Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...

(2000), whose long afterlife as an object of modern interpretations and appropriations he critically analyzed.

Works

• Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt, London & New York: Kegan Paul, 1996, ISBN 0-7103-0530-3
• From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views. A Source History, London & New York: Routledge, 1996 (co-editor), ISBN 0-415-09335-X
• Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt, London & New York: Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-18549-1

External links

• Association Internationale de Papyrologues: In memoriam Dominic Montserrat 1964–2004