BIRCH, Samuel, English Egyptologist: b. London, 3 Nov. 1813; d. there, 27 Dec. 1885. At the age of 23 he was appointed an assistant in the department of antiquities in the British Museum and latterly became keeper of the department devoted to Egyptian and Oriental antiquities, a post which he retained till his death. His labors did much to advance the study of Oriental archaeology, and his eminence in his own province was duly recognized by learned bodies and institutions. In 1870 he assisted in founding the Society of Biblical Archaeology, of which he was president till his death. In 1874 he successfully presided over the International Congress of Orientalists that met in London in that year. His studies ranged over a wide field, but it is on his eminence as an Egyptologist that his reputation chiefly rests. His work was invaluable alike to the expert and the beginner: the first dic tionary of hieroglyphics, the first elementary grammar of Egyptian, the first set of popular translations into English, and the first treatise on Egyptian archaeology, came from his hand.
Among his works arc 'Introduction to the Study of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs' to ac company Gardiner Wilkinson's work on Egypt; 1857) ; 'History of Ancient Pottery, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman' (1858) ; (Himyaritic Inscriptions of Southern Arabia> (1863) ; 'Dictionary of Hieroglyphics and Grammar' of the same in the fifth volume of the English edition of Bunsen's (Egypt's Place in the Universal History' (1867) ; 'Guide to the Egyptian Galleries of the British Museum' (1874) ; 'New Edition of Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians> (1878). For full account of his life and work, consult of the Society of Biblical Archaeology' (Vol. IX, 1893).