Pahor Labib

Pahor Labib (Ⲡⲁϩⲱⲣ Ⲗⲁⲡⲓⲡ; Arabic: باهور لبيب Bahur Labib; 19 September 1905 at Ain Shams, Cairo – 7 May 1994) was Director of the Coptic Museum, Cairo, Egypt, from 1951 to 1965 and one of the world leaders in Egyptology and Coptology.

Labib was born in 1905 in Cairo.

His father was Cladius Labib, also an Egyptologist and Coptologist who was one of the first Egyptians to learn Hieroglyphics from the French Egyptologists in Egypt and who compiled a Coptic-Arabic dictionary.

He grew up in Ain Shams, a suburb of Cairo, where his father had a house with a few acres of land (13 "feddans") that were used to cultivate fruits and vegetables.

For preparatory school Labib went to the "Great Coptic School" and then to Khedivieh Secondary School, both in Cairo.

After Labib received his "Bachaloria", he entered the Faculty of Law.

However, the Faculty of Archeology had recently opened and he joined this as well.

At the final year, exams for both studies clashed, so he choose to sit the Archeology final which he passed with distinction.

Labib was sent for higher studies to Berlin, Germany in 1930.

He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Frederick William University in 1934.

The subject of his doctoral degree was King Ahmose I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who expelled the Hyksos from Egypt.

Labib showed that the Hyksos stayed in Egypt for 150 years (previously suggested periods were much longer) and that they came from Canaan.

He was the first Egyptian to obtain a doctorate in Egyptology.

Labib returned to Egypt and was appointed Lecturer in the Institute of Archeology at Cairo University in 1935.

In 1945 he obtained the post of Keeper at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

He was later appointed director of the provincial museums, during which period he established a few museums around the country, and expanded the Aswan Museum.

He was instrumental in transferring the Ismaila Museum from the Suez Canal Company to the administration of the Department of Antiquity.

In 1951, he was appointed Director of the Coptic Museum, a post he kept until retiring in 1965.

Labib started the excavations in Abu Mena, Western Desert in 1951.

Through his contacts, he managed to build a rest house that was spacious and well furnished (built by the German Archeological Institute, Cairo).

Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria used to visit the place and even stayed there, to hold an early service in the site of the ancient Cathedral of Saint Menas.

Later Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria started the building of the Monastery of Saint Mina.

Labib was also involved with excavations in "Tel-Atrib", near the city of Banha in Lower Egypt; the site of a great Cathedral before the Arab invasion.

Pope Shenouda III had an interest in and visited the site of these excavations.

Labib also contributed to the study of the Nag Hammadi texts.

Translating these texts was a mammoth task as the Coptic language encountered was also dealing with philosophy.

UNESCO had an interest in these texts and established an international committee to translate and publish this work.

Labib was a secretary, vice president, and president of this committee.

The first publication of part of the collection was by him in 1956.

A Coptic exhibition was held in Villa Hegel in Essen (West Germany) in 1963 to which Labib was an invited guest.

Labib served on many committees both nationally and internationally owing to his expertise in many fields.

In the national arena he served on dozens of committees including the highest in the land to award the most prestigious awards in Arts and Social Sciences in the country.

He also served on many committees for Archeology and Tourism, including one for Coptic Tourism.

Labib was chosen as acting director of the Egyptian Museum in the summer of 1964 to investigate the disappearance of a piece of Tutankhamun's treasures.

He remained acting director of the Egyptian Museum for a year.

During his directorship of the Coptic Museum he turned the museum into a world-famous research centre for Coptic Studies.

He was one of the first to use the word "Coptology".

His teachers in Germany included Herman Grapow (with whom he stayed in touch till the latter's death in 1967) and Kurt Heinrich Sethe.

Labib believed that this philosophy is Egyptian in origin (rather than Greek) and presented a paper on the subject to the First International Congress of Coptology in Cairo in 1976.

Publications of the translated manuscripts carried on until 1984.