Georges Goyon (19051996) was a French-Egyptian

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

, a senior fellow at the

National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

, and

King Farouk Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 193 ...

's private archaeologist.

Biography

Goyon was born in Port-Saïd, Egypt, in 1905, son of Henri Goyon, who worked for the

Suez Canal Company Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...

. A student and disciple of Pierre Montet, Goyon led, early in his career, the construction of a gigantic granite monument at

Ismaïlia Ismailia ( ar, الإسماعيلية ', ) is a city in north-eastern Egypt. Situated on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it is the capital of the Ismailia Governorate. The city has a population of 1,406,699 (or approximately 750,000, includ ...

for the Suez Canal Company. For twenty years he led the work of excavation of Tanis and inspected the stones of the

Great Pyramid The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ...

Cheops Khufu or Cheops was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period ( 26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as havin ...

to which he practically dedicated his life to, but also did a vast amount of work on the inscriptions and graffiti on the Great Pyramid, making a number of important discoveries especially in the 1940s. In 1946, Goyon discovered an "

abecedary An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises. Non-Latin alphabe ...

incised on black granite" in

Wadi Hammamat Wadi Hammamat ( en, Valley of Many Baths, ''India way; gateway to India'') is a dry river bed in Egypt's Eastern Desert, about halfway between Al-Qusayr and Qena. It was a major mining region and trade route east from the Nile Valley in ancien ...

Publications

As author: * ''Les inscriptions et graffiti des voyageurs sur la Grande Pyramide. Préf. de Ét. Drioton. '', Société royale de géographie, Cairo, 1944. * ''Le papyrus de Turin dit "des Mines d'or" et le Wadi Hammamat'', Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, 1949. * ''Le Tombeau d'Ankhou à Saqqarah'', Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1959. * ''Le Secret des bâtisseurs des grandes pyramides - Khéops'', Pygmalion Editions, 1983. * ''La Découverte des trésors de Tanis'', Éditions Perséa, 1987. As a contributing author: * '' Les constructions et le tombeau de Chéchanq III à Tanis'', 1960. * ''Histoire générale des techniques. Tome I, Les origines de la civilisation technique'', Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1962. As an editor: * ''Voyage en Égypte d'Anthoine Morison, 1697'', Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, 1976. * ''Nouvelles inscriptions rupestres du Wadi Hammamat'', Paris: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient (Imprimerie nationale), 1957.

References

French Egyptologists French archaeologists 1905 births People from Port Said 1996 deaths 20th-century archaeologists French expatriates in Egypt {{Egyptologist-stub