Willem Pleyte

Dr. Willem Pleyte (26 June 1836 – 11 March 1903) was a Dutch Egyptologist and museum director.

Family Willem Pleyte was the son of Cornelius Marinus Pleyte. He was born on 26 June 1836 in Hillegom, where his father was a pastor.

Education He attended the French school in Loenen (which was not very highly regarded) from 1840. He was then sent to the Gymnasium Bommel, where his uncle was the rector where he studied up to 1855. From 1855 to 1860, Pleyte studied theology at the Opzoomer college of Utrecht University. He found the subject of theology to his liking and did well in his studies. In 1860, he completed his education successfully.

Career He hoped to follow in the footsteps of his father and started his career from 1860 in church council of Gelderland and he found the job of a preacher not to his liking. During this time, for two years, he also ventured into scientific research in theology and started writing articles and publishing them in journals; the first article was "The Book of Noah “ and the others were "the Ascension of the Prophet Jesus", and “the Removal of Moses” and published them in journals. He then started research on Egyptology, a subject still in its infancy with very few well known experts in the field such as Rouge, Lepsius, Brugsch and others. He was dispirited by this critique but continued to write. His next work was on "Lettre à Monsieur Théodule Deveria sur quelques monuments relatifs au Dieu Set" which refers to monuments, their locations and worship practices of gods with many names of the northern and southern nations. This book proved his erudition in Egyptology. The subject of this text is a collection of spells against various diseases. The 'Etudes' begins with a translation and commentary of a text on the verso of Papyrus I 348, which is now preserved in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.

In his last major work Chapitres supplémentaires du Livre des Morts 162–174 (1881–1882), he translated and analyzed different parts of the Book of the Dead. The discovery that the Leiden and london papyri originally formed one manuscript is attributed to Pleyte, as he recognized the handwriting to be the same. The work was published however, by Professor Hess from Freiburg in 1892.

Starting in 1869, Pleyte applied for the curator position at the "archaeological cabinet" (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden); earlier he had been invited only as a volunteer. They both served on the board of Brill.

Honours

In March 1871, the Italian government honoured him with the Order of the Crown of Italy. In 1875, the Senate of the Leyden University promoted him as Doctor Honoris causa in Literature. In 1882, he was appointed as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. On 31 August 1898, he was decorated with the Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. He was a member of several national and international societies. As one of the leading specialists in hieratic of his time, a portrait bust of Willem Pleyte was included in the funerary monument for Auguste Mariette in the garden of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Family life Pleyte married Catharina Margaretha Templeman van Hoeven (23 August 1839 – 15 March 1895) on 8 August 1862. The couple had ten children, six of whom reached adulthood. Notable are Thomas Bastiaan Pleyte (23 October 1864 – 25 March 1926; lawyer and politician) and Cornelis Marinus Pleyte (24 June 1863 – 22 July 1917; Dutch East Indies ethnologist and museum curator).

Selected works 1862: La religion des Pré-Israélites. Recherches sur le dieu Seth, dissertation Leiden University. Revised edition published in 1865 by Hooiberg et Fils, Leiden. 1865: Catalogue raisonnée de types égyptiens hiératiques de la fonderie de N. Tetterode à Amsterdam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1866: Études Égyptologiques I: Étude sur un rouleau magique du musée de Leide, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1868: Les Papyrus Rollin, de la Bibliothèque Impériale de Paris, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1869-1876 (with ): Papyrus de Turin, 2 vols., Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1874 (with ; ): Leiden vóór 300 jaren en thans. Photolithographische afbeelding van een platte-grond van 1578, en chromolithographische afbeelding van het chaertbouc van straten binnen deser Stadt Leyden, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1877-1903: Nederlandsche oudheden van de vroegste tijden tot op Karel den Groote. Afbeeldingen naar de oorspronkelijke voorwerpen of naar photographiën met begeleidende tekst en oudheidkundige kaart. I: Tekst; II: Platen; [III:] Carte archéologique de la Néerlande. Oudheidkundige kaart van Nederland, Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1879: Études Égyptologiques III: L'épistolographie égyptienne, Leiden (unfinished). 1879 (with ): Catalogus van het Stedelijk Museum te Leiden, Leiden. 1881: Chapitres supplémentaires du Livre des morts 162 à 174 publiés d'après les Monuments de Leide, du Louvre et du Musée Britannique, Leiden: E.J. Brill.