AMÉLINEAU, ÉMILE-CLÉMENT. - French Egyptologist, b. at La Chaize-Giraud (Vendée) on 28 Aug. 1850, d. at Châteaudun in Jan. 1915. A priest, he followed the courses of G. Maspéro (v.) and S. Grébaut (v.) in Paris; in 1882 he was sent to the Archaeological Institute of Cairo. He apostatized in 1887, and shortly afterwards he occupied the chair of Egyptian religions at the École des Hautes-Études, which he held until his death.
Having taken his doctorate at the Sorbonne (1888) with the theses Essai sur le gnosticisme égyptien and De Historia Lusiana, from 1895 to 1898 he explored part of the necropolis of Abydos, where he discovered the tombs of the pharaohs of the first three dynasties (Les nouvelles fouilles d'Abydos, Paris 1897-99; Mission A., Comptes rendus in extenso, 3 vols., ibid. 1902-1905). Believing that he had discovered the tomb of Osiris (Le tombeau d'Osiris, ibid. 1899), he maintained that Osiris, Horus and Seth had existed as kings and that after death they were deified by apotheosis; this strange thesis, rejected by Maspéro, won no acceptance.
Among the many works of A. (published in Paris) on ancient Egypt, Christian Egypt and Coptic literature, we note:
Fragments de la version thébaine de l'Écriture, 1890; La géographie de l'Égypte, 1893; Résumé de l'histoire de l'Égypte, 1894; Essai sur l'évolution historique et philosophique des idées morales de l'ancienne Égypte, 1895; Histoire de la sépulture et des funérailles dans l'ancienne Égypte, 2 vols., 1896; Manuscrits coptes de la Bibliothèque Nationale renfermant des textes bibliques du Nouveau Testament, 1897; Les idées sur Dieu dans l'ancienne Égypte, 1903; Prolégomènes à l'étude de la religion égyptienne, 1908.
Bibliography
Antonino Romeo