Karl Richard Lepsius
Karl Richard Lepsius (Latin: Carolus Richardius Lepsius) (23 December 1810 – 10 July 1884) was a Prussian Egyptologist, linguist and modern archaeologist.[1]
Karl Richard Lepsius
23 December 1810
10 July 1884 (aged 73)
Prussian, German
6
Bernhard Klein (father-in-law)
University of Berlin
He is widely known for his opus magnum Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien.
Early life[edit]
Karl Richard Lepsius was the son of Karl Peter Lepsius, a classical scholar from Naumburg, and his wife Friederike (née Gläser), who was the daughter of composer Carl Ludwig Traugott Gläser.[2] The family name was originally "Leps" and had been Latinized to "Lepsius" by Karl's paternal great-grandfather Peter Christoph Lepsius.[3] He was born in Naumburg on the Saale, Saxony.[4]
He studied Greek and Roman archaeology at the University of Leipzig (1829–1830), the University of Göttingen (1830–1832), and the Frederick William University of Berlin (1832–1833). After receiving his doctorate following his dissertation De tabulis Eugubinis in 1833, he travelled to Paris, where he attended lectures by the French classicist Jean Letronne, an early disciple of Jean-François Champollion and his work on the decipherment of the Egyptian language, visited Egyptian collections all over Europe and studied lithography and engraving.
Family[edit]
On 5 July 1846, he married Elisabeth Klein, (1828–1899), daughter of the composer Bernhard Klein and great-granddaughter of Friedrich Nicolai. They had six children, including the geologist and Rector of the Darmstadt University of Technology G. Richard Lepsius (1851–1915), the chemist and director of the Chemical Factory Griesheim Bernhard Lepsius (1854–1934), the portrait painter and member of the Prussian Academy of Arts (as of 1916) Reinhold Lepsius (1857–1929) and the youngest son Johannes Lepsius, Protestant theologian, humanist and Orientalist.
Death[edit]
He had stomach ulcers which became cancerous. After five weeks of eating little, he died at 9 am on 10 July 1884.[11]