Pierre Montet (June 27, 1885,
Villefranche-sur-Saône,
Rhône – June 19, 1966) was a respected
French Egyptologist.
Biography
Montet first began his studies under
Victor Loret at the University of
Lyon.
He excavated at
Byblos (modern
Jbail) in
Lebanon between 1921 and 1924, excavating tombs of rulers from
Middle Kingdom times. Between 1929 and 1939, he excavated at
Tanis,
Egypt, finding the royal necropolis of the
Twenty-first and
Twenty-second Dynasties — the finds there almost equalled that of
Tutankhamun's tomb in the
Valley of the Kings.
In the 1939-1940 Egypt excavation season, he discovered the completely intact tombs of 3 Egyptian pharaohs at Tanis:
Psusennes I,
Amenemope, and
Shoshenq II along with the partially plundered tomb of
Takelot I in Lower Egypt at Tanis. The latter tomb contained a gold bracelet of
Osorkon I, Takelot's father, as well as a heart scarab. He also found the fully plundered tomb of
Osorkon II as well as the partly plundered tomb of this king's son, Prince
Hornakht. The start of
World War II in Western Europe in May 1940 stopped all excavation work at Tanis. However, after the war, Montet resumed his activities at Tanis and proceeded to uncover the intact tomb of General Wendebauendjed, (literally the Commander-in-Chief of the Army) who served under Psusennes I, in 1946.
During his academic career, he served as Professor of
Egyptology at the
University of Strasbourg from 1919 to 1948 and then at the
Collège de France,
Paris...
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