Person

Sethe, Kurt Heinrich

1869-1934

German Egyptologist; he was born in Berlin, 30 September 1869, son of Heinrich Christoph S. and his wife Auguste Gertrud; he studied Egyptology under Erman at Berlin University, 1888-92; PhD, 1892; Habilitation, 1895; 1907; afterwards succeeding Erman at Berlin, 1923; Sethe was with Erman the greatest figure in Egyptian philology in the twentieth century; his achievement has been said to have been comparable with that of Brugsch or even Champollion in some fields; he made discoveries in all philological branches and also in history, geography, religion, mathematics, and chronology; his range was comprehensive, covering all texts from those of the Early Dynastic period to Demotic and Coptic, making important discoveries in all; he was a voluminous writer; of his many grammatical works the great Verbum was the most important; he collated and re-edited the Pyramid Texts, first published by Maspero; he founded and edited the Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Aegyptens to which he made many important contributions from 1896 onwards; he visited Egypt, 1904-5, and copied and collated a large number of historical texts which he published in 1906-9, as Urkunden der 18. Dynastie; his many works defined the Egyptian language in a way never before achieved and made the study of grammar more exact; these contributions appeared in ZÄS and other journals and as separate publications; his principal works were Die Thronwirren unter den Nachfolgern Königs Thutmosis I, etc., 1896; Das Aegyptische Verbum in Altaegyptischen, Neuaegyptischen und Koptischen, 3 vols. 1899-1902; Dodekaschoinos: das Zwölfmeilenland an der Grenze von Aegypten und Nubien, 1901; Beiträge zur ältesten Geschichte Ägyptens, 1905; Urkunden des Alten Reichs, 4 parts, 1903-33; Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, 16 parts, 1906-9; Hieroglyphischen Urkunden der Griechisch-Römischen Zeit, 3 parts, 1904-16; Die Altaegyptischen pyramidentexte, 1 and 2, Text, vol. 3, Kritischer Apparat, 4, Epigraphik, 1908-22, his greatest work; Die Einsetzung des Veziers unter der 18. Dynastie: Inschrift im Grabe des Rech-mi-Re zu Schech Abd el Gurna, 1909; Sarapis und die sogenannten 'Katochoi' des Sarapis: zwei Probleme der Griechisch-Aegyptischen Religionsgeschichte, 1913; Der Nominalsatz im Agyptischen und Koptischen, 1916; Von Zahlen und Zahlworten bei den alten Ägyptern und was für andere Völker und Sprachen daraus zu lernen ist ..., 1916; Die Zeitrechnung der alten Aegypter im Verhältnis zu der andern Völker, 2 parts, 1919-20; Demotische Urkunden zum ägyptischen Bürgschaftsrechte, vorzüglich der Ptolemäerzeit, etc., 1920, a huge work of over 800 pages; Aegyptische Lesestücke … Texte des Mittleren Reiches, 2 parts, 1924-7; Dramatische Texte zu Altaegyptischen Mysterienspielen, 1928; Urgeschichte und älteste Religion der Ägypter, 1930; Das Hatschepsut-Problem noch einmal untersucht, 1932; Historisch-biographische Urkunden des Mittleren Reiches, with W. Erichsen, 1935; Übersetzung and Kommentar zu den Altägyptischen Pyramidentexten, 6 vols. with W. Erichsen, 1935-62; Thebanische Tempelinschriften aus Griechisch-Römischer Zeit, posth., 1957; Sethe edited the text of Lepsius' Denkmäler which was supplied by Naville and collaborated with Gardiner in Egyptian Letters to the Dead; he visited Egypt for a second time in 1925; he died in Berlin, 6 July 1934.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (5th ed. 2019), 424-425 fig. (portrait).