E. A. Wallis Budge

Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge; (July 27, 1857 – November 23, 1934) was a Cornish Egyptologist, Orientalist, and Philologist.

Wallis Budge studied Egyptology under Samuel Birch at the British Museum from 1870 to 1878, and later at Christ's College of the University of Cambridge. From 1894–1924 he was the Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, for which he collected (sometimes rather questionably) a large number of Egyptian papyri, cuneiform tablets, and manuscripts written in Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Syriac, and Ge'ez ("Ethiopic"). Many of these he later published.

He is credited with writing over 140 titles, many of which are still widely reprinted today. Many of his works, however, did not receive careful attention to detail; and were flawed even by the standards of his day.

In addition to his philological studies, Wallis Budge is also noted for excavating at a number of sites in Lower Nubia and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, including Aswan, Meroë, Semna, and Jebel Barkal.

Selected Works by Wallis Budge

• 1893. The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Margâ, A. D. 840; Edited from Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum and Other Libraries. 2 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited
• 1895. The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum; the Egyptian Text with Interlinear Transliteration and Translation, a Running Translation, Introduction, etc. [London]: British Museum. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1967)
• 1904. The Gods of the Egyptians, or, Studies in Egyptian Mythology. 2 vols. London: Methuen & Co. ltd. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1969)
• 1905. The Egyptian Heaven and Hell. 3 vols. Books on Egypt and Chaldaea 20–22. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1996)
• 1908. The Book of the Kings of Egypt, or, The Ka, Nebti, Horus, Suten Bȧt, and Rā Names of the Pharaohs with Transliterations, from Menes, the First Dynastic King of Egypt, to the Emperor Decius, with Chapters on the Royal Names, Chronology, etc. 2 vols. Books on Egypt and Chaldaea 23–24. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited. (Reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1976)
• 1911. Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Illustrated after Drawings from Egyptian Papyri and Momuments. 2 vols. London: P. L. Warner. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1973)
• 1920. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, With an Index of English Words, King List and Geographical List with Index, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets, etc.. London: John Murry. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1978)
• 1925. The Mummy: A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1989)
• 1929. The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum: The Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphic Texts of the Decree Inscribed on the Rosetta Stone Conferring Additional Honours on Ptolemy V Epiphanes (203–181 B.C.) with English Translations and a Short History of the Decipherment of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and an Appendix Containing Translations of the Stelae of Ṣân (Tanis) and Tall al-Maskhûṭah. London: The Religious Tract Society. (Reprinted New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1989)
• 1932a. The Chronicle of Gregory Abû'l Faraj, 1225–1286, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physcian, Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus; Being the First Part of His Political History of the World, Translated from Syriac. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press. (Reprinted Amsterdam: Apa-Philo Press, 1976)
• 1932b. The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son, Menyelek (I); Being the "Book of the Glory of Kings" (Kebra Nagast), a Work Which is Alike the Traditional History of the Establishment of the Religion of the Hebrews in Ethiopia, and the Patent of Sovereignty Which is Now Universally Accepted in Abyssinia as the Symbol of the Divine Authority to Rule Which the Kings of the Solomonic Line Claimed to Have Received Through Their Descent from the House of David; Translated from the Ethiopic. 2nd ed. 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press

Further Reading

• Morrell, Robert. 2002. "Budgie…": The Life of Sir E. A. T. Wallis Budge, Egyptologist, Assyriologist, Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, 1892 to 1924. Nottingham: [privately published]