Chabas, Francois Joseph

Chabas, Francois Joseph an illustrious French Egyptologist, was born Jan. 2,1817, at Brianon, in the department of the Hautes-Alps. He spent his early years in business, yet from boyhood cherished an ardent love for learning, and devoted all his leisure moments to the study of ancient and modern languages. When, in 1852, he retired from active life, he settled at Chalons-sur-Sa8ne, and turned his attention to Egyptology. He soon became a master, and his first pamphlet, entitled Note sur l'Explication de Deux Groups

Hieroglyphiques, bears the date 1856. From this time he was a constant contributor to the different periodicals and reviews, and speedily rose to a position of authority equal to that of his former masters, Dr. Birch and the vicomte E. de Rouge. Living in profound seclusion in a provincial town, he accumulated for his own use a complete and costly collection of Egyptokogical books, and with no other aid gained and kept one of the foremost places in the ranks of modern science. He died at Versailles, May 17,1882. Although he had never visited Egypt, yet, as Eugene Revillout has said of him, "It was he who first laid down with certainty the scientific bases of Egyptian metrology; it was he who, with the hand of a master, first indicated the broad connecting lines of history and chronology; it was he who gave us the first, and, till now, the only materials concerning the criminal law of the epoch of the Pharaohs." (B. P.)