Sami Gabra, the Coptic Egyptologist (from Le Monde Égyptien, 1939) and Amenhotep III (statue in the British Museum)
Sami Gabra (1893-1979), was a Coptic Egyptologist and Coptologist who studied archeology at the Liverpool University and the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1920s. After graduation, he became professor of ancient Egyptian history at the Cairo University. Some of the jobs he undertook were curator of the Egyptian Museum then head the Institute of Egyptian Archaeology (first Egyptian for that job). He cofounded with Aziz S. Atiya the Institute of Coptic Studies and became its director for many years. He was also a founding member of the Society of Coptic Archeaology. His work in archeology included excavations at Dayr Tasa near Asyut and Tunah al-Jabal, the necropolis of Hermopolis Magna. He wrote about the latter excavations: Peintures et fresques de Touna-al-Gabal, with the collaboration of E. Drioton (Cairo, 1941) and Chez les derniers adorateurs du Trismégiste: La Nécropole d’Hermopolis (Cairo, 1971).[1]
When Gabra first met Adolf Erman (1854 – 1937) the famous German Egyptologist and lexicographer who is famous for recovering the grammar of the Egyptian language, Erman greeted him with a heartly “You are a Copt … of the blood of Amenophis III, that dear Pharaoh whom I would like to see in another age!”[2] Amenophis III is Amenhotep III (1386 – 1349 BC), one of the great pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty in ancient Egypt. In his days, Egypt was at the apogee of its strength and achievement. He fathered Akhenaton who succeeded him.
One can see the similarity in their looks. Why not, since the Copts are the purest and direct successors of the ancient Egyptians.
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[1] See entry by Mirrit Boutros Ghali in The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 7, ed. Atiya, Aziz Suryal (New Yourk, 1991).
[2] Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East, ed. by James P. Jankowski and I. Gershoni (New York, 1997), p. 140.