MARIETTE, AugusteFerdinand François, elder son of François P. Mariette, advocate and town-clerk of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was born in that town on the 11th of February 1821. Educated at the Boulogne municipal college, he distinguished himself in geometry, physics, chemistry, history, Latin, Greek, and English. He also evinced a remarkable talent for art. In 1839, when but eighteen years of age, he went to England in the capacity of professor of French aud drawing at a boys’ school at Stratford-on-Avon, which occupation he exchanged in 1840 for that of pattern-designer to a ribbon manufacturer at Coventry. Weary of ill-paid exile, he returned that same year to Boulogne, resumed his interrupted studies, and in March 1841 took his bachelor’s degree (with honourable mention) at Douai. He now became a professor at the college where he had formerly been a student, and for some years supplemented his modest salary by giving private lessons, and writing on historical and archaeological subjects for various local periodicals. In the meanwhile his cousin, Nestor I.’Hôte, the friend and fellow-traveller of Champoilion, died; and upon Auguste Mariette devolved the pious task of sorting the multitudinous papers of the deceased savant. The young man thenceforth became passionately interested in Egyptology, devoted himself to the study of hieroglyphs and Coptic, and in 1847 published a Catalogue Analytique of the Egyptian Gallery of the Boulogne Museum. He had now found his vocation, and in 1849, being appointed to a subordinate position in the Louvre, left Boulogne for Paris. Entrusted shortly after with a Government mission for the purpose of seeking and purchasing Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopie MSS. for the national collection, he started for Egypt in 1850. Soon after his ...arrival he made his celebrated discovery of the ruins of the Serapeum and the subterraneous catacombs of the Apis-bulls, buried for probably some two thousand years under the sands of the Libyan desert (see vol. vii. p. 773). His original mission being abandoned, funds were now advanced for the prosecution of his researches, and he remained in Egypt for four years, excavating, discovering, and despatching archaeological treasures to the Louvre, of which museum he was, on his return, appointed an assistant conservator. In 1858, by permission of his own Government, he accepted the position of conservator of Egyptian monuments to the ex-khedive, Ismail-Pasha, and so removed with his family to Cairo. His history thenceforth becomes a chronicle of unwearied exploration and brilliant success. The pyramid-fields of Memphis and Sakkara, and the necropolises of Meydum, Abydos, and Thebes were ransacked for sepulchral treasures; the great temples of Denderah and Edfoo were disinterred, and, with their tens of thousands of inscriptions and bas-reliefs, restored to the light of day; important excavations were carried out at Karnak, Medinet-Habu, and Deir-el-Babari; Tanis (the Zoan of the Bible) was partially explored in the Delta; and even Gebel Barkal in the far Soudan was made to yield monuments of the Ethiopie kings. The Sphinx was also bared to the rock-level, and the famous granite and alabaster monument miscalled the “Temple of the Sphinx” was discovered. In the meanwhile Mariette, raised successively to the rank of bey and then of pasha, had founded the “École Française d’Égyptologie” and the “Institut Égyptien,” and created ab ovo the museum at Bulak, the richest and by far the most interesting Egyptian collection in the world. Honours and orders were showered upon him. Poor in purse but rich in fame, he received in 1852 the grand cross of the Legion of Honour and of the Medjidie, in 1855 the Red Eagle (first - class) of Prussia, in 1857 the Italian order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus, and in 1858 the Austrian order of Francis-Joseph. In 1873 the Academy of Inscriptions decreed to him the great biennial prize of 20,000 francs, and in 1878 he was elected a member of the Institute. He was also an honorary member of most of the learned societies of Europe. Though of herculean strength and indomitable energy, he was not proof against over-work of all kinds, physical, mental, and official. Prostrated in 1877 by a first attack of the insidious malady from which only death released him, he lingered for a few years, working to the last, and died at Cairo January 19, 1881. His remains, enclosed in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus chosen by himself for that purpose, are interred within the precincts of the museumgarden at Bulak, facing the entrance to that unrivalled collection which is his own noblest monument.
Of Mariette’s numerous and important contributions to the literature of Egyptology, we may here especially note the following works, which are not only distinguished for their erudition and accuracy, but for the exquisite grace of style with which they arc written :— Le Sérapéum de Memphis, folio, 1857 and following years; Dendérah, five folios· and one 4to, 1873-75; Abydos, two folios and one 4to, 1870-80; Karnak,, folio and 4to, 1875; Deir-el-Bahari, folio and 4to, 1877; Listes géographiques des pylônes de Karnak, folio, 1875; Catalogue du Musée de Boulaq, six éditions, 1864-76; Aperçu de l'histoire d'Égypte, four editions, 1864-74, &c. His last, and one of his most important works, Les Mastabas de Γ Ancien Empire, text and illustrations facsimiled from the original MSS., folio, is now in course of publication, edited by Professor G. Maspero.
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