Willem Pleyte
Dr. Willem Pleyte (Hillegom, 26 June 1836 - Leiden, 1 March 1903) was a Dutch Egyptologist and museum director. Pleyte studied theology from 1855 to 1860 at the Utrecht University.[1] He hoped to follow in the footsteps of his father, the pastor Cornelius Marinus Pleyte. But after two years, he began to study Egyptology.
From 1862 to 1892, he wrote several publications for which he was criticized, such as "La religion pre-Israelite; Recherches sur le dieu Set" (1865).[2] In 1868, he wrote an article for "Etudes Égyptologiques" in which he gave a translation and commentary of the hieratic text on the verso of Papyrus Leiden I 348.[3] The subject of this text is a collection of spells against various diseases. He also commented on the Book of the Dead, number 125, comparing 40 papyri from Leiden and Paris. Pleyte also studied the papyri in the Museo Egizio in Turin. Between 1869 and 1876, he and museum curator Francesco Rossi published Papyrus de Turin, making a part of the large papyri collection of the Regio Museo di Antichita di Torino available to others.[4]
In his last major work Chapitres supplémentaires du Livre des Morts 162-174 (1881-1882), he translated and analyzed different parts of the Book of the Dead.[5] The discovery that the Leiden Papyrus Bilingue and the London papyrus originally formed one document is attributed to Pleyte, as he recognized the handwriting to be the same.[6] The work was published however, by Professor Hess from Freiburg in 1892.
Starting in 1869, Pleyte applied for the curator position at the "archaeological cabinet" (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden). Even though there was opposition from the Director Conradus Leemans, Pleyte was appointed as conservator in February 1, 1869.[1] Pleyte was not put in charge of the Egyptian section, rather he was given the Classic and Dutch sections. After Leemans retired in 1891, Pleyte became the director of the RMO, where he made many improvements. He reorganized the drawings, he created space to study, and he made a significant expansion to the library. Not long after his appointment as director, Pleyte began to suffer from rheumatism. In January 1903, he resigned. Only a few weeks later, on March 11, he died at the age 66. Pleyte was the father of the Indologist and museum curator, Cornelis Marinus Pleyte.[7]
See also
References
- ^ a b Prins, A. Winkler; Zondervan, Henri (1921). Winkler Prins' geïllustreerde encyclopaedie (in Dutch). Elsevier. p. 718. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ Pleyte, Willem (1865). La religion des pré-Israélites: recherches sur le dieu Seth. T. Hooiberg et Fils. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ Waraksa, Elizabeth A. (18 November 2009). Female Figurines from the Mut Precinct: Context and Ritual Function. Saint-Paul. p. 148. ISBN 978-3-525-53456-4. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ Two Ancient Egyptian Ships' Logs: Papyrus Leiden I 350 Verso, and Papyrus Turin 2008 + 2016. Brill Archive. 1961. pp. 53–. GGKEY:C26WWP7CLAG. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- ^ Eliot, George (21 November 1996). George Eliot's 'Daniel Deronda' Notebooks. Cambridge University Press. p. 419. ISBN 978-0-521-46064-4. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1974). The Leyden papyrus: an Egyptian magical book. Dover Publications. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-486-22994-2. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- ^ Handelings (in Dutch). Brill Archive. p. 5. GGKEY:BL6YJ6F412T. Retrieved 27 October 2012.