22/03/2026
Auguste Mariette (born Feb. 11, 1821, Boulogne, Fr.—died Jan. 19, 1881, Cairo) was a French archaeologist who conducted major excavations throughout Egypt, revealing much about the earlier periods of Egyptian history.
Mariette joined the Egyptian department of the Louvre in 1849 and in the following year traveled to Egypt to obtain ancient manuscripts. Instead, he began excavating at Ṣaqqārah, an area that included part of the burial grounds of ancient Memphis.
He remained in Egypt four years, continuing excavations and dispatching most of what he found to the Louvre, where he became curator upon his return to France.
Accepting the position of conservator of monuments from the Egyptian government, Mariette in 1858 settled in Egypt, where he remained for the rest of his life. He eliminated unauthorized excavation, thereby securing a virtual monopoly on archaeological investigation, and he restricted the sale and export of antiquities in order to preserve new discoveries for the Egyptian nation. In 1859 Mariette succeeded in persuading the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt to establish a museum at Būlāq, near Cairo, to house what became the world’s foremost repository of Egyptian antiquities, the Egyptian Museum.
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