Edward R. Ayrton

Edward Russell Ayrton, also Edward R. Ayrton, ( born December 17, 1882 in Wuhu, China, † May 18 1914 in Ceylon ) was a British Egyptologist.

Life and work

His parents were William Scrope Ayrton, consular employee in China, and Ellen Louisa McClatchie. He received his education at the prestigious St. Paul's School in London. Ayrton began his training at the Egypt Exploration Fund, with 20 years as an assistant to William Matthew Flinders Petrie from 1902 to 1904 during its excavations at Abydos. Here he learned the systematic and methodical approach in archeology.

Ayrton's first independent excavation was the site of Shunet ez Zebib ( Abydos ). Later he dug with William LS Loat in Ghurab.

1904 to 1905 he worked at Deir el- Bahari in the Excavation Team of Édouard Naville and Henry Reginald Holland Hall who were there engaged in the excavation of the Temple of Mentuhotep II and the surrounding tombs of royal princes and princesses.

He worked from 1905 to 1908 for Theodore M. Davis in the Valley of the Kings. Among the discoveries for Davis include the tombs of Ramses IV ( KV2 ), Siptah ( KV47 ), Horemheb ( KV57 ), and the famous " animal graves " ( KV50 - KV52 ) and as " Balsamierungsdepot " designated KV54.

Also, grave number 55, the grave owner could not be determined, was discovered by him. Davis wrote this grave in 1910 in his publication of Queen Tiy to. Later studies of the remains proved, however, that it was a male dead. The magical bricks with his name, the inscriptions with his titles and not least the destruction of face and name cartridges on the coffin led to much speculation: we had come across the grave of the accursed heretic king Akhenaten? Unfortunately, the excavation of KV55 is one of the most poorly conducted and documented in the Valley of the Kings at all. The official publication of Davis and Ayrton is superficial, partly inaccurate and not even contains a plan of the tomb. Without secure archaeological record the history of the tomb remains largely unknown even today.

In addition, however, he also made one of the most famous " Davis discoveries ": a small Fayencebecher with the throne name of Tutankhamun. The special thing about it was the fact that up to this time, the grave of Tutankhamun has not yet been discovered and this mug was therefore one of the first indications of the existence of this king and his tomb.

1908 to 1909, he worked again with Loat at Abydos and put tombs from the 6th dynasty free. Later they explored then Necropolis El Mahasna.

1911 Ayrton left Egypt and took a position with the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon. He drowned in 1914 during a hunting expedition to Ceylon in the river Menik near Monaragala.

Publications

  • ER Ayrton: Discovery of the tomb of Si - ptah in the biban el Moluk, Thebes. In: Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology ( PSBA ), Volume 28, London, 1906.
  • Edward R. Ayrton: The Date of Buddhadasa of Ceylon from a Chinese source. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. , 1911.
  • Edward R. Ayrton: The Excavation of the Tomb of Queen Tiyi. In: Nicholas Reeves (ed.): The Tomb of Queen Tiyi. KMT Communications, San Francisco 1990.
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