MASPERO, GASTON CAMILLE CHARLES (1846 1916), French Egyptologist, was born in Paris on June 23, 1846, his parents being of Lombard origin. He was in his second year at the Ecole Normale in 1867 when he met Mariette, who was then in Paris as commissioner for the Egyptian section of the exhibi tion. Mariette encouraged his studies, and in 1869 he became a teacher (repetiteur) of Egyptian language and archaeology at the Ecole des Hautes ttudes ; in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of Champollion at the College de France.
In Nov. 188o Professor Maspero went to Egypt as head of an official archaeological mission, which ultimately developed into the well-equipped Institut Francais de l'Archeologie Orientale. Mas pero then succeeded as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. He held this post till June 1886; in these five years he had organized the mission, and had discovered the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri in July 1881. Maspero now resumed his professorial duties in Paris until 1899, when he returned to Egypt in his old capacity as director-general of the department of antiquities. He found the collections in the Cairo museum enormously increased, and he superintended their removal from Gizeh to the new quarters at Kasr en-Nil in 1902. The vast catalogue of the collections made rapid progress under Maspero's direction. Twenty-four volumes or sections were already pub
lished in 1909. The repairs and clearances at the temple of Karnak led to the most remarkable discoveries in later years (see KAR NAK). He died in Paris on June 30, 1916.
Among his best-known publications are: Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique (3 vols., Paris, 1895-97), displaying the history of the whole of the nearer East from the beginnings to the conquest by Alexander; a smaller Histoire des peuples de l'Orient, I vol., of the same scope, which has passed through six editions from 1875 to 1904; Etudes de mythologie et d'archeologie egyptiennes (1893, etc.), a collection of reviews and essays originally published in various journals, and especially important as contributions to the study of Egyptian religion; L'Archeologie egyptienne (latest ed., 1907), of which several editions have been published in English.
Maspero also wrote: Les Inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah (Paris, 1894) ; Les Momies royales de Deir el-Bahari (1889) ; Les Contes populaires de l'Egypte ancienne (3rd ed., 1906) ; Causeries d'Egypte (1907), translated by Elizabeth Lee as New Light on Ancient Egypt (1908).