Sir Peter le Page Renouf (23 August 1822 – 14 October 1897) was a British professor,
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 ...
, and museum director, best known for his translation of ''
The Book of the Dead
The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from t ...
''.
Personal life
Renouf was born in
Guernsey
Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency.
It is the second largest of the Channel Islands, ...
on the
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey ...
on 23 August 1822.
He married Ludovica von Brentano, member of a well-known German literary family in 1857. He died in London on 14 October 1897.
Education
Renouf was educated at
Elizabeth College, Guernsey
The Royal College of Elizabeth, better known as Elizabeth College, is a co-educational independent school in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey. One of the earliest members of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), it is a public school ...
. He matriculated at
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...
in 1840. He became a
Roman Catholic, under the influence of
John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and car ...
, and left without taking a degree since he was unable to subscribe to the
Thirty Nine Articles, as required in those days.
[''The Letters of Peter le Page Renouf (1822–1897)'', edited by Kevin J. Cathcart, 4 vols. (University College Dublin Press, 2002-2004), reviewed by Patricia Usick (British Museum), retrieved 25 May 200]
/ref>
Religious background
Like many other Anglicanism, Anglican converts, he proved a thorn in the side of the Ultramontane
Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by t ...
party in the Roman Church, though he did not, like some of them, return to the communion of the Church of England. He opposed the promulgation of the dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam o ...
of Papal Infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks ''ex cathedra'' is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apost ...
, and his treatise (1868) upon the condemnation of Pope Honorius for heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
by the council of Constantinople in AD 680 was placed upon the index of prohibited books.
Career
Professorship
He had been from 1855 to 1864 professor of ancient history and Oriental languages in the Roman Catholic university which Newman vainly strove to establish in Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...
, and during part of this period edited the ''Atlantis'' and the ''Home and Foreign Review'', which latter had to be discontinued on account of the hostility of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Renouf was one of the defenders of Champollion and of his method of decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,0 ...
in England when he was being criticized unfairly by other scholars.
Museum directorship
In 1864 he was appointed a government inspector of schools, which position he held until 1886, when his growing celebrity as an Egyptologist procured him the appointment of Keeper of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documen ...
, in succession to Dr Samuel Birch. His understudy was E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
with whom he had an acrimonious relationship. He didn't want Budge to succeed him as keeper, through a perceived lack of social skills (Budge didn't come from a privileged background) and doubts about his abilities, objecting strongly to Budge being appointed as his successor and preferring Edouard Naville instead.
Renouf was elected in 1887 president of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, to whose ''Proceedings'' he was a constant contributor.
Renouf was removed from his position as Keeper in the British Museum on reaching retirement age despite the signed opposition of twenty-five leading European Egyptologists of the day who wrote to the prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...
. Renouf gave "excoriating evidence in court against Budge" when the latter was found to have "falsely accused Hormuzd Rassam
Hormuzd Rassam ( ar, هرمز رسام; syr, ܗܪܡܙܕ ܪܣܐܡ; 182616 September 1910), was an Assyriologist and author.
He is known for making a number of important archaeological discoveries from 1877 to 1882, including the clay tablets tha ...
of being corruptly involved in illicit trade of cuneiform tablets." Renouf continued to feel animosity towards Budge, accusing him of plagiarism and being a charlatan.
Academic works
The most important of his contributions to Egyptology are his Hibbert Lectures on ''The Religion of the Egyptians'', delivered in 1879; and the translation of ''The Book of the Dead
The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from t ...
'', with an ample commentary, published in the ''Transactions'' of the society over which he presided. He retired from the Museum under the superannuation rule in 1891 and was knighted for services to the British Museum in 1896.
His letters show unstinting praise for Renouf's scholarship from all the leading Egyptologists of his day.
Bibliography
* "''Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt''", Delivered in May and June 1879, republished Adamant 2001,
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Renouf, Peter Le Page
1822 births
1897 deaths
Guernsey people
English people of French descent
English Egyptologists
People educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism
Guernsey Roman Catholics
Employees of the British Museum
English male non-fiction writers
Knights Bachelor