Artefacts of Excavation

British Egyptologist and engineer; he was born in Moretonhampstead, Devon, 9 July 1888, son of Frederick George E., surgeon, and Marianne Wrench; he was educated at Tonbridge School and afterwards trained as an engineer at the City and Guilds Institute, 1905-8, but his studies were interrupted by a long illness, and a visit to Egypt during convalescence in 1909-10 turned his attention to Egyptology; he studied Egyptian, Coptic, and Arabic at University College London, and in 1911 went as assistant to Petrie, excavating at Heliopolis, Shurafa, Kafr Ammar, Riqqa, and Haraga; in 1914 he joined the Artists Rifles, and served in France and Gallipoli and was then sent by Allenby to report on the ancient sites in Syria and Palestine; he married Nancy Lambert, 1915; after the war, he returned to help Petrie at Lahun and Gurob, 1919-20, and was appointed Chief Inspector in Upper Egypt for the Antiquities Service, 1920; Assistant Keeper, Cairo Museum, 1924; Chief Keeper, 1931; retired 1941; Hon. Member French Inst. 1935; Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, 1937; Hon. Fellow University Coll. London, 1946, but died before confirmed; Technical Adviser to Cairo Museum, 1941-6; Engelbach had an active career in the field and in museum work and arrangement, his greatest achievement being without doubt his great museum Register for Cairo, a vast index of 100,000 nos.; he contributed articles to ASAE and other journals regularly; his main publications were, Riqqeh and Memphis VI, with chaps. by M. A. Murray, H. Petrie, W. M. F. Petrie, 1915; The Aswân Obelisk, with some remarks on ancient engineering, 1922; The Problem of the Obelisks, from a study of the unfinished Obelisk of Aswan, 1923; Harageh, with B. G. Gunn, 1923; A Supplement to the Topographical Catalogue of the Private Tombs of Thebes, nos. 253-334. With some notes on the Necropolis from 1913 to 1924, 1924; Gurob, with G. Brunton, 1927; Ancient Egyptian Masonry, with Somers Clarke, 1930; Index of Egyptian and Sudanese Sites from which the Cairo Museum contains Antiquities, 1931; edited the Introduction to Egyptian Archaeology. With special reference to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 1946; some of his papers are in the Griffith Institute; others were sold at Bonhams, London, 23 June 2009, lot 110; he died in Cairo, 26 Feb. 1946.