Labib Habachi

Labib Habachi
Tomb of Labib Habachi in Malqata
Born	لبيب حبشي (1906-04-18)April 18, 1906 Mansoura
Died	Cairo
Resting place	Monastery of St. Theodore, Malqata
Nationality	Egyptian
Occupation	Egyptologist

Labib Habachi (لبيب حبشي) (April 18, 1906 - February 18, 1984) was an influential Egyptian Egyptologist.

Dr Habachi spent 30 years in the Antiquities Department of the Egyptian Government, ending his career as Chief inspector. During this period he spent an enormous amount of time in numerous dig sites in Egypt and the Sudan. He left government work to accept a position at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as an Archaeological Consultant to its Nubian Expedition.

Tell el-Dab'a

Between 1929 and 1939, Pierre Montet excavated at Tanis, finding the royal necropolis of the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasties — the finds there almost equalled that of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. He believed that he found the location of Avaris, and this opinion was widely accepted at the time.

Yet Habachi was not convinced. In 1941-42 he worked at Tell el-Dab'a for the Egyptian Antiquities Service and came to the conclusion that this was in fact Avaris.

When a detailed study of the topography of the site and its surroundings was made by Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in the 1980s, Habachi's hypothesis was confirmed. Bietak's mission revealed that the actual Hyksos capital was indeed Tell al-Dab'a.

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Works

• Habachi (1977). The Obelisks of Egypt: Skyscrapers of the Past. Scribner.

• Aswan : the town with a glorious past and a promising future / by Labib Habachi ; Henry Riad.
• Features of the deification of Ramesses II / [by] Labib Habachi.
• Fī ṣaḥrāʼ al-ʻArab wa-al-adyirah al-sharqīyah / taʼlīf Labīb Ḥabashī, Zakī Tāwaḍrūs.
• KHATA'NA-QANTIR; IMPORTANCE
• LABIB HABACHI MISCELLANEA; A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES ON EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES BY LABIB HABACHI
• The sanctuary of Heqaib / by Labib Habachi, with contributions by Gerhard Haeny and Friedrich Junge ; photographs by Dieter Jo
• The second Stela of Kamose and his struggle against the Hyksos ruler and his capital / [by] Labib Habachi.
• Sixteen studies on lower Nubia / by Labib Habachi.
• Studies on the Middle Kingdom / Labib Habachi.
• Tell Basta / by Labib Habachi
• Le tombeau de Naÿ à Gournet Marʻeï (no. 271) / Labib Habachi, Pierre Anus.

Decorations and awards

• 1953 Member of the German Archaeological Institute
• 1964 Member of the Institut d'Égypte
• 1965 the Egyptology Institute of Charles University in Prague
• 1983 Honorary Member of the Société Française d'Egypte.
• Egyptian state award and a medal for the first class in the humanities and natural sciences,
• 1959 Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• 1973 Order of Merit of the Legion of Honour (France)
• 1980 Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class
• 1966 Honorary doctorate from New York University
• 1978 Honorary President of the International Association of Coptic Studies

References

• Jill Kamil, Labib Habachi: The Life and legacy of an Egyptologist. American Univ in Cairo Press, 2007 ISBN 9774160614