EBERS, GEORG MORITZ (1837-1898), German Egypt ologist and novelist, was born in Berlin on March 1, 1837. At Gottingen he studied jurisprudence, and at Berlin oriental lan guages and archaeology. He became in 1865 docent in Egyptian language and antiquities at Jena, and from 1870 to 1889 he was professor at Leipzig. He had made two scientific journeys to Egypt, and his first work of importance, Agypten and die Bucher Moses, appeared in 1867-1868. In 1874 he edited the medical papyrus ("Papyrus Ebers") which he had discovered in Thebes (tr. by H. Joachim, 1890). Ebers early conceived the idea of popularizing Egyptology by means of historical romances. Eine agyptische Konigstochter (1864) had a great success. His sub sequent works of the same kind—Uarda (1877), Homo sum (1878), Die Schwestern (188o), Der Kaiser (1881), of which the scene is laid in Egypt at the time of Hadrian, Serapis (1885), Die Nilbraut (1887), and Kleopatra (1894), were also popular. Ebers also turned his attention to other historical periods—espe cially the 16th century (Die Frau Burgermeisterin, 1882; Die Gred, 1887)—without, however, attaining the success of his Egyptian novels. His other writings include a descriptive work on Egypt (Agypten in Wort and Bild, 2nd ed., 188o), a guide to Egypt (1886) and a life (1885) of his old teacher, the Egypt ologist Karl Richard Lepsius. He died at Tutzing, Bavaria, on Aug. 7, 1898.
Ebers's Gesammelte Werke appeared in 25 vols. at Stuttgart (1893 1895) . Many of his books have been translated into English. For his life see his Die Geschichte meines Lebens (Stuttgart, 1893) ; also R. Gosche, G. Ebers, der Forscher and Dichter (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1887).