Georg Ebers
Georg Moritz Ebers was a German Egyptologist and novelist. He is best known for his purchase of the Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest Egyptian medical documents in the world.
Life
Georg Ebers was born in Berlin and was the youngest of the five children of an affluent family of bankers and porcelain manufacturers. The Ebers children were raised by their mother on her own, after their father committed suicide shortly after Ebers was born. His mother ran a salon popular among members of the intelligentsia, which included Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the Grimm Brothers, and Alexander von Humboldt.At Göttingen, Ebers studied jurisprudence, and at Berlin Oriental languages and archaeology. Having made a special study of Egyptology, he became in 1865 Dozent in Egyptian language and antiquities at Jena, becoming a professor in 1868. In 1870 he was appointed professor in these subjects at Leipzig. He had made two scientific journeys to Egypt, and his first work of importance, Ägypten und die Bücher Moses, appeared in 1867–1868. In 1874 he edited the celebrated medical papyrus, which he had discovered in Thebes.
Ebers early conceived the idea of popularising Egyptian lore by means of historical romances. Eine ägyptische Königstochter was published in 1864 and obtained great success. His subsequent works of the same kind—Uarda, Homo sum, Die Schwestern, Der Kaiser, of which the scene is laid in Egypt at the time of Hadrian, Serapis, Die Nilbraut, and Kleopatra —were also well received and did much to make the public familiar with the discoveries of Egyptologists. Ebers also turned his attention to other fields of historical fiction—especially the 16th century —without, however, attaining the success of his Egyptian novels.
Ebers discovered the Ebers Papyrus at Luxor in the winter of 1873–74. Now in the Leipzig University Library, the Ebers Papyrus is among the most important ancient Egyptian medical papyri. It is one of two of the oldest preserved medical documents anywhere—the other being the Edwin Smith Papyrus. The Ebers Papyrus mentions more than 700 substances and medical recipes that include incantations and concoctions. Ebers published it as a facsimile with an English-Latin vocabulary and introduction.
His other writings include a descriptive work on Egypt ; Palestine in Picture and Word, an 1884 translation of the English series Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt; a life of his old teacher, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius; and a guide to Egypt. In 1889, the state of his health led him to retire from his chair at Leipzig on a pension.
Ebers's Collected Works appeared in 25 volumes at Stuttgart. Many of his books have been translated into English. For his life, see his Die Geschichte meines Lebens ; also R. Gosche, G. Ebers, der Forscher und Dichter.
Ebers was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1895.
Arachne, which was published on 7 August 1898, was Ebers' last novel. It was written at the Villa Ebers in Tutzing, near Munich.
Works
; ScholarshipÄgypten und die Bücher Moses Egypt: Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque Aegypten in Wort und Bild, 2nd ed., 1880)Palestine in Picture and Word, an 1884 translation of the English series Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and EgyptRichard Lepsius, ein Lebensbild Lorenz Alma Tadema: His Life and Works; Fiction - EgyptianEine ägyptische Königstochter - Ebers' first novelUarda: Roman aus dem alten Aegypten Homo sum - a novella about 4th century A.D. Christianity on the Sinai peninsulaDie Schwestern Der Kaiser Serapis, a Romance - a novel on the destruction of the Library of AlexandriaDie Nilbraut Kleopatra Arachne ''
; Fiction - non-EgyptianDie Frau Bürgermeisterin Die Gred Barbara Blomberg: A Historical RomanceIn the Blue Pike Ein Wort In the Fire of the Forge: A Romance of Old Nuremberg Elixir, and Other Tales In the Desert Elifen: A Dream of the Desert
; Short fictionThe Greylock: A Fairy TaleThe Nuts
; MemoirDie Geschichte meines Lebens
; Collected worksCollected Works appeared in 25 volumes at Stuttgart