Archibald Henry Sayce
British Assyriologist; he was born in Shirehampton, Gloucs., 25 Sept. 1845, son of Revd Henry Samuel S., vicar of Shirehampton, and Mary Anne Cartwright; he was educated at Grosvenor Coll. Bath and The Queen’s Coll. Oxford; Professor of Assyriology, University of Oxford, 1891-1919; DLitt; LLD; DD; Hon. FBA; member of the OT Revision Company, 1874-84; Hibbert Lecturer, 1887; Gifford Lecturer, 1900-2; Rhind Lecturer, 1906; Huxley Lecturer, 1931; he did important and pioneer work on the Carian script and on the Hittite language and texts; he published many books and studies in the field of Assyrian and Western Asian archaeology and philology; although not an Egyptologist he was intimately connected with Egypt for over half a century, and travelled extensively in Egypt where he spent many winters in his own boat on the Nile, copying inscriptions etc.; he had a wide circle of friends among Egyptologists and published his interesting Reminiscences in 1923; the following relate to Egypt, The Ancient Empires of the East, 1884; The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos, 1895; Egyptian and Babylonian Religion, 1903; Aramaic papyri discovered at Assuan, 1906; he also edited Murray’s Handbook to Egypt, 1896; his papers are in the Griffith Institute, Oxford; he bequeathed his library to The Queen’s College, Oxford, and his collections of Egyptian antiquities and Oriental ceramics to the Ashmolean Museum; he died in Bath, 4 Feb. 1933.
