Louis de Vaucelles de Ravigny

Louis de Vaucelles de Ravigny (full name Alexandre-Louis-Henri de Vaucelles de Ravigny; Argentan, 14 November 1798 – Paris, 12 August 1851) was a French Egyptologist, traveler, orientalist, and politician. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of Egyptology in Nubia, due to his work on ancient monuments and his interpretations of hieroglyphs, carried out even before the publication of Jean-François Champollion’s research on the subject.

Biography Origins He was the son of Emmanuel-Alexandre de Vaucelles, lord of Ravigny, mayor of Champfrémont, and Henriette Le Forestier de La Durandière. He was an Egyptologist and a landowner at La Poôté (Saint-Pierre-des-Nids). The Vaucelles family originated in Poitou, and its titles form a substantial archival collection in the Departmental Archives of Vienne.. . From the 17th century onward, the Vaucelles family resided on the estate of La Bellière. Their coat of arms was: silver with a red chief charged with seven gold billets, four above three. His brother, Alexandre François Jules de Vaucelles de Ravigny, was a general councillor for the canton of Briouze and mayor of Lignou. Married to Adrienne Antoinette du Meilet, his son Paul Mohamed de Vaucelles de Ravigny (1836–1890), married to Marie Eugénie de Boffé, general councillor for the canton of Pré-en-Pail. Education and influences Historian Michel Denis describes Louis de Vaucelles as a landowner in the full sense of the term, having lived entirely off his landed income. He trained early in the Decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts and archaeology. In 1833, he published a translation from Arabic of the Ajroumiyyah by Mohammed ben Daoud . In 1826, Louis de Vaucelles embarked on a year-long journey in Egypt and Nubia. He left Marseille on 27 January 1826 and arrived the following day in Alexandria, where he remained until mid-March before proceeding to Cairo. He traveled up the Nile as far as Wadi Halfa, south of the first cataract, and then descended the river, exploring both banks. He visited the principal archaeological sites: Alexandria, Cairo, Karnak, Luxor, Dendera, Abydos, Philae, Aswan, and many others . Jean‑François Champollion mentioned Louis de Vaucelles de Ravigny in his letters and journals (Lettres et Journaux de Champollion, H. Hartleben, éd., vol. 1, 1902, p. 272) . Politics Politically, he strongly supported the regime of the July Monarchy. One of his neighbors, who remained a legitimist (Carliste), described him as: an atheistic socialist of alarming eccentricity who proposed taxing all priests . Legacy One of his great-grandnephews, Pierre de Vaucelles, served as French ambassador to Iraq and as deputy representative of France to the United Nations . His collection was later dispersed by his descendants, including a papyrus written in abnormal Hieratic , now held by the British Museum Works Chronologie des monuments antiques de la Nubie d'après l'interprétation des légendes royales contenues dans les bas-reliefs hiéroglyphiques, 1829, Paris, Librairie orientale de Dondey-Dupré Père et fils, Chronologie des monuments antiques de la Nubie, d'après l'interprétation des légendes royales contenues dans les bas-reliefs hiéroglyphiques, par M. Louis Vaucelle..., In-8° , 24 p., 4 pl. Ibn Adjurrum; Traducteur de la Grammaire arabe de Mohammed-ben-Daoud; publiée à Paris, avec le texte arabe, en 1833, in-8. (Bachelin-Defiorenne, en 1870, no 309, 2 fr. 50.) Ibn Adjurrum, L'Adjroumieh, grammaire arabe, de Mohammed-ben-Daoud; publiée en arabe et en français. Paris, 1834, in-8 de 44 pp.