Maspero , Sir , Gaston Camille Charles , 1846-1916 , Knight , Egyptologist

Gaston Maspero was born in Paris in 1846. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure. Whilst still a student he met Auguste Mariette and became interested in Egyptology. He taught the Egyptian language and archaeology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the Collège de France before heading an archaeological expedition to Egypt in 1880. In 1881 he succeeded Mariette as the director-general of excavations. In 1886 he resumed his professorship in Paris but returned to Egypt in 1899 where he remained director-general of antiquities until his retirement in 1914. The archaeologist Howard Carter was his protegée. Unusually for a foreigner, Maspero was awarded a British knighthood in 1909.