Victor Clement Georges Philippe Loret (1 September 1859 – 3 February 1946) was a French

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 ...

Biography

His father, Clément Loret, was a professional

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and composer, of Belgian origin, who had been living in Paris since 1855. He stayed in Egypt several times and published his first book, ''L'Égypte aux temps des pharaons'', in 1898. Loret studied with

Gaston Maspero Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper. Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia. ...

at the

École des Hautes Études École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. In 1897 he became the head of the

Egyptian Antiquities Service The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) was a department of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture from 1994 to 2011. It was the government body responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavatio ...

. In March 1898, he discovered

KV35 Tomb KV35 is the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep II located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Later, it was used as a cache for other royal mummies. It was discovered by Victor Loret in March 1898. Layout and history It has a dog's leg shape, ...

, the tomb of

Amenhotep II Amenhotep II (sometimes called ''Amenophis II'' and meaning ''Amun is Satisfied'') was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few militar ...

in the

Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings ( ar, وادي الملوك ; Late Coptic: ), also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ar, وادي أبوا الملوك ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th ...

. Amenhotep II's mummy was still located in his royal sarcophagus but the tomb also proved to hold a cache of several of the most important New Kingdom

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

s such as

Thutmose IV Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; egy, ḏḥwti.msi(.w) "Thoth is born") was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century ...

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( egy, jmn-ḥtp(.w), ''Amānəḥūtpū'' , "Amun is Satisfied"; Hellenized as Amenophis III), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different ...

and

Ramesses VI Ramesses VI Nebmaatre-Meryamun (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses, also known under his princely name of Amenherkhepshef C) was the fifth ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. He reigned for about eight years in the mid-to-late 12th centur ...

. The cache of Royal Mummies had been placed in KV35 to protect them from looting by tomb robbers by the 21st Dynasty High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem. In 1920 he examined the

Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe is a medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwi and the town of Masvingo. It is thought to have been the capital of a great kingdom during the country's Late Iron Age about which little is known. Con ...

in what was then the British colony of

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

where he claimed that the

Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher (1865–1952), was a French scholar, who argued that the Buddha image has Greek origins. He has been called the "father of Gandhara studies", and is a much-cited scholar on ancient Buddhism in northwest Indian subconti ...

's earlier examinations were accurate. This has proven controversial because

claimed that the Great Zimbabwe ruins (and the

Khami Khami (also written as ''Khame'', ''Kame'' or ''Kami'') is a ruined city located 22 kilometres west of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe. It was once the capital of the Kingdom of Butwa of the Torwa dynasty. It is now a national monument, and became a UNES ...

ruins) were built by

Phoenicians Phoenicia () was an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient thalassocracy, thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-st ...

and not by the ancestors of the

Bantu people The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct List of ethnic groups of Africa, ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Sou ...

who are a majority of the region's inhabitants. These views were later challenged by

Gertrude Caton Thompson Gertrude Caton Thompson, (1 February 1888 – 18 April 1985) was an English archaeologist at a time when participation by women in the discipline was uncommon. Much of her archaeological work was conducted in Egypt. However, she also worked on ...

. Loret also discovered tombs

KV32 Tomb KV32, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, is the burial site of Tia'a, the wife of Amenhotep II and mother of Thutmose IV. The tomb was discovered in 1898 by Victor Loret. It is an undecorated tomb and runs back some 40 metres into ...

KV33 Tomb KV33 is a non-royal tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered by Victor Loret Victor Clement Georges Philippe Loret (1 September 1859 – 3 February 1946) was a French Egyptologist. Biography His father, Cl ...

KV36 Tomb KV36, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was used for the burial of the noble Maiherpri from the Eighteenth Dynasty. Rediscovered by Victor Loret in his second season in the Valley of the Kings, on 30 March 1899, the tomb was foun ...

KV38 KV38 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was used for the reburial of Pharaoh Thutmose I of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and was where his body was removed to (from KV20) by Thutmose III Thutmose III (va ...

KV40 Tomb KV40 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. Artifacts from the tomb attribute it to 18th Dynasty royal family members, though human remains from the later 22nd Dynasty were interred. Although the tomb was excavated by Victor Loret i ...

KV41 Tomb KV41, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was the last tomb to be found by Victor Loret, and has not been excavated or examined. The original owner of this tomb is unclear, but it may have been Tetisheri Tetisheri was the matriarch ...

and

KV42 Tomb KV42 (Kings Valley 42) is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was constructed for Hatshepsut-Meryetre, the wife of Thutmose III, but she was not buried in the tomb. It was reused by Sennefer, a mayor of Th ...

. His claim to have discovered

KV34 Tomb KV34 ( ar, مقبرة تحتمس الثالث, Maqbarat Tahtamis al-Thaalithi) in the Valley of the Kings (near the modern-day Egyptian city of Luxor) was the tomb of 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III. One of the first tombs to be dug in the ...

is disputed by some Egyptologists who believe that honour should instead be awarded to one of his local foremen. He died in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, France, on 3 February 1946, at the age of 86. He donated some of his archives to the University of Lyons, but a majority to his favorite student,

Alexandre Varille Alexandre Varille (12 March 1909, Lyon – 1 November 1951, Joigny) was a French Egyptologist. Life From a cultured family from Lyon, he studied Economics and Letters. During his studies he met Victor Loret, his Egyptology professor at the Univer ...

Literature

* Morris L. Bierbrier: ''Who was who in Egyptology.'' 4th revised edition. Egypt Exploration Society, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-85698-207-1, pp. 337–338. * Victor Loret, Patrizia Piacentini, Christian Orsenigo, Stephen Quirke u. a.: ''La Valle dei Re riscoperta: I giornali di scavo di Victor Loret (1898–1899) e altri inediti'' (= ''Le vetrine del sapere.'' Band 1). Imprimeria della Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano 2004, ISBN 88-7624-201-5.

External links

Victor Loret in the Valley of the Kings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loret, Victor 1859 births 1946 deaths Writers from Paris French Egyptologists