Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Голенищев; 29 January 1856 – 5 August 1947), formerly also known as Wladimir[1] or Woldemar Golenischeff,[2] was one of the first and one of the most accomplished Russian Egyptologists.
Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Голенищев; 29 January 1856 – 5 August 1947), formerly also known as Wladimir[1] or Woldemar Golenischeff,[2] was one of the first and one of the most accomplished Russian Egyptologists.
Golenishchev, the son of a well-to-do merchant was born in St. Petersburg.[3] He inherited capital and significant real estate in St. Petersburg from his merchant family.[3] Golenishchev also received an adequate home education where he found interest in oriental studies, particularly in Egyptology.[3] Golenishchev found further education at Saint Petersburg University from 1875 to 1879.[3] However, at that time, the institution provided minimal resources for the study of Egyptology.[4] The mostly self-taught Egyptologist even published his first article about papyrus in 1874 at the age of eighteen.[4] Golenishchev was fluent in more than a dozen languages including Russian, French, German and English.[4]
In 1884–85 he organized and financed excavations in Wadi Hammamat, followed by the research at Tell el-Maskhuta in 1888–89. In the course of the following two decades, he traveled to Egypt more than sixty times and brought back an enormous collection of more than 6,000 ancient Egyptian antiquities, including such priceless relics as the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, the Story of Wenamun, the Alexandrian World Chronicle, and various Fayum portraits, the Teaching of King Merikare, and the Prophecy of the Priest Nefer-rehu.[5] The most well-known document he discovered was the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor.[4] He also published the so-called Hermitage papyri, including the Prophecy of Neferti, now stored in the Hermitage Museum.
Golenishchev created a firm foundation for Russian Egyptology and paved the way for future Egyptologists.[4] Golenishchev had many pupils in the time he spent at the University of Cairo.[4] One notable student, Boris Alexandrovitch Turaev, learned much from Golenishchev and went on to train the next generation of Russian Egyptologists.[4] Alexandrovitch Turaev also persuaded Golenishchev to sell his collection of Egyptian statuary to the Moscow Museam of Fine Arts.[6]
In 1890, Golenishchev purchased a trove of papyri from a dealer that had been deliberately torn apart and sold in pieces and reconstructed them in Cairo.[4] These papyri are invaluable for language studies and include the Story of Wenamun, recounting the tribulations and humiliations of an Egyptian emissary to Byblos in the New Kingdom's degraded, waning days.[4] Later, this work included a word list that became known as the Golenischeff Onomasticon.[4]
Having sold his collection to the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts in 1909, Golenishchev settled in Egypt. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he never returned to Russia, residing in Nice and Cairo. In Egypt, he established and held the chair in Egyptology at the University of Cairo from 1924 to 1929. In 1874, Golenischev published his first article and in 1877 he published valuable work on Metternich Stela.[5] Additionally, he made crucial contributions to the study of cuneiform, publishing Vingt-quarte tablettes cappadociennes in 1891.[5] He was also employed by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where he catalogued hieratic papyri.
In 1947, Golenishchev died in Nice at the age of 91. In 2006, a monument was constructed for Golenishchev at the Cairo Egyptian Museum in memory of great Egyptologists of the world.[7] His papers are held at the Pushkin Museum, at the Centre Wladimir Golenischeff in Paris, France, and also in the Griffith Institute in Oxford, England.
