Samuel Birch

Samuel Birch (November 3, 1813 - December 27, 1885), was an British Egyptologist and antiquary.

Birch was the son of a rector at St Mary Woolnoth, London. From an early age, his manifest tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects well suited his later interest in archaeology. After brief employment in the Record Office, he obtained, in 1836, an appointment to the antiquities department of the British Museum. The appointment was due to his, at that time unusual knowledge of Chinese. He soon broadened his research to Egyptian. When the cumbrous department came to be divided, he was appointed to head the Egyptian and Assyrian branch.

In the latter language he had assistance, but for many years there was only one other person in the institution, in a different department, who knew anything of ancient Egyptian. The entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch. He found time nevertheless for Egyptological work of the highest value, including a hieroglyphical grammar and dictionary, translations of "The Book of the Dead" and papyrus Harris I, and numerous catalogues and guides.

He further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese. Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist; while learned and laborious, he possessed much of the instinctive divination of genius.----

Publications

1858 History of Ancient Pottery: Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek. Two volumes. John Murray, London.