Émile Amélineau was a French Coptologist, archaeologist

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and Egyptologist

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”...

. His scholarly reputation was established as an editor of previously unpublished Coptic texts. But his reputation was destroyed by his work as a digger at Abydos, after Flinders Petrie re-excavated the site and showed how much destruction Amélineau had wrought.

Career

Amélineau began his career by studying theology and was ordained as a priest prior to 1878. Between 1878 and 1883 he studied Egyptology and Coptic at Paris under the direction of Gaston Maspero

Gaston Maspero

Gaston Camille Charles Maspero was a French Egyptologist.-Life:Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to parents of Lombard origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic writing...

 and Eugène Grébaut. In 1883 he was a member of the French archaeological mission at Cairo, and renounced his orders. In 1887 he submitted his thesis, on Egyptian gnosticism

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

. Thereafter he held a number of academic posts in French.

Amélineau published great quantities of Coptic literature. He was perhaps the greatest Coptic scholar of his generation.

He undertook an ambitious project to edit the literary remains of Shenoute, the founder of Coptic monasticism. He first published a collection of Coptic and Arabic texts, all more or less related to this subject (1888-95), and then a corpus of Shenoute's own works (1907-14). Work on the latter was interrupted by his death. Stephen Emmel has said that his publication of these texts was "too full of errors to be relied on for serious purposes", but that no-one else has undertaken the task.

Amélineau also excavated in Egypt, at a period when archaeology had yet to become a scientific subject distinguishable from tomb raiding or treasure hunting. Much of his work was on the Early Dynastic period

Early Dynastic Period of Egypt

The Archaic or Early Dynastic Period of Egypt immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom...

 of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

. In 1895 he discovered a stele

Stele

A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...

 inscribed with the name of pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

 Djet

Djet

Djet, also known as Wadj, Zet, and Uadji , was the fourth Egyptian pharaoh of the first dynasty...

. This object is now on display at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

. He was the first archaeologist to excavate the tombs of the First Dynasty

First dynasty of Egypt

The first dynasty of Ancient Egypt is often combined with the Dynasty II under the group title, Early Dynastic Period of Egypt...

 pharaohs of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 at the Umm el-Qa'ab

Umm el-Qa'ab

Umm el-Qa`āb is the necropolis of the Early Dynastic kings at Abydos, in Egypt. Its modern name means Mother of Pots, as the whole area is littered with the broken pot shards of offerings made in earlier times...

 section of Abydos

Abydos, Egypt

Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...

, his findings outlined in several volumes of material published in the early years of the 20th century.

But his work as an excavator has attracted strong criticism, not least from Flinders Petrie, the founder of modern scientific Egyptology. Amélineau dug at Abydos from 1894 to 1898. Petrie was awarded the concession to dig there by Gaston Maspero, head of the Antiquities Service, after Amélineau had declared that there was nothing more to be found there. Petrie was appalled at what had been done, and did not mince his words. He wrote:

"During four years there had been the scandal of Amelineau's work at the Royal Tombs of Abydos. He had been given a concession to work there for five years; no plans were kept (a few incorrect ones were made later), there was no record of where things were found, no useful publication. He boasted that he had reduced to chips the pieces of stone vases which he did not care to remove, and burnt up the remains of the woodwork of the 1st dynasty in his kitchen."

Amélineau was so well connected that it was felt to be unsafe to tell him that the concession had been reassigned in case he came back, and he did not discover what had happened until some years later.

Amelineau responded to the criticism in his tardy publication of his finds. But the fact was that his work merely produced a series of finds of tombs and artefacts, while Petrie, by sifting the rubble that Amélineau left behind, was able to establish the whole chronology of the First dynasty. Petrie's work using scientific methods established Petrie's reputation, and conversely severely damaged that of Amélineau. Jane A. Hill has said that "Amelineau was not an archaeologist and basically plundered the cemetery in search of goods he could sell to antiquities collectors."

One example of the limitations of Amélineau's work is that 18 of the 20 ivory and ebony labels describing key events in the reign of the pharaoh Den

Den (Pharaoh)

Den, also known as Hor-Den, Dewen and Udimu, is the Horus name of an early Egyptian king who ruled during the 1st dynasty. He is the best archaeologically attested ruler of this period. Den is said to have brought prosperity to his realm and numerous innovations are attributed to his reign...

 known to come from that king's tomb were found by Flinders Petrie in the spoil heaps left by Amélineau's earlier excavation of that tomb.

In 1905 Amélineau donated a portion of his collection to the Society of Archaeology of Châteaudun, which is now on display at its Museum of Fine Arts and Natural History.

Works

• Fragments coptes du Nouveau Testament dans le dialecte thébain, Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie, V (1884), pp. 105-139.
• Fragments de la version thebaine de l'ecriture (Ancien Testament), Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie, V (1886), pp. 10 ff.
• Essai sur le gnosticisme égyptien, ses développements et son origine égyptienne, E. Leroux, Paris, 1887.
• Contes et romans de l'Égypte chrétienne (Paris, 1888)
• La géographie de l'Egypte à l'époque copte (Paris, 1893)
• Essai sur l'évolution historique et philosophique des idées morales dans l'ancienne Égypte, E. Leroux, Paris, 1895.
• Les nouvelles fouilles d'Abydos, 1896-1897, compte-rendu in extenso des fouilles..., E. Leroux, Paris, 1902.
• Notice des manuscrits coptes de la Bibliothéque Nationale (Paris: 1895)
• Avec A. Lemoine, Les nouvelles fouilles d'Abydos, 1897-1898, compte-rendu in extenso des fouilles..., E. Leroux, Paris, 1904-1905.
• Prolégomènes à l'étude de la religion égyptienne, essai sur la mythologie de l'Égypte, n°21, Bibliothèque de l'école des hautes études, E. Leroux, Paris, 1908.

Other references

• Pascale Ballet, AMÉLINEAU, Émile, Institut National d'histoire de l'art article in French with detailed bibliography and a different view from that of Petrie.