Ludwig Borchardt - Biography

Ludwig Borchardt (5 October 1863 – 12 August 1938) was a German Egyptologist who was born in Berlin.

Life

Borchardt initially studied Architecture and later Egyptology under Adolf Erman. In 1895 he journeyed to Cairo and produced, with Gaston Maspero, the Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum (Catalogue Général du Musée du Caire). In 1907 he founded the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archäologische Institut) in Cairo, and remained its director until 1928.

His main focus was Ancient Egyptian architecture. He began excavations in Amarna, where he discovered the workshop of the sculptor Djhutmose, amongst its contents was the bust of Nefertiti, (now in the Neues Museum in Berlin). He also directed the excavations in Heliopolis and the tombs of Old Kingdom nobles in Abu Gorab. He died in Paris, on 12 August 1938. Recently, controversy has arisen with the assertion he smuggled the bust of Nefertiti out of Egypt by reporting it as an artifact made of gypsum. It has also been claimed by Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin that the bust is a copy dating from 1912.

Publications

• Baugeschichte des Amontempels von Karnak (1905)
• Die Annalen und die zeitliche Festlegung des Alten Reiches der ägyptischen Geschichte (1917)
• Quellen und Forschungen zur Zeitbestimmung der Ägyptischen Geschichte, 3 Bde. (1917-1938)