Budge, E.A. Wallis. The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians by E.A. Wallis Budge, M.A., Litt.D. Sometime Scholar of Chri...

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Budge, Sir (Ernest Alfred Thompson) Wallis 1857-1934, Assyriologist and Egyptologist. "In 1892, while still an assistant, Budge was put in charge of the department, now re-named Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, and in 1894 he was appointed keeper, remaining so until his retirement in 1924...Among Egyptologists Budge was the best Semitic scholar of his generation. He sturdily refused to accept two theories which became fashionable, namely, the grammatical interpretation of certain forms of the Egyptian verb by analogy with the Semitic verb, and transliteration based upon the unprovable phonetic theory that the hieroglyphic writing represents always only consonants as in Semitic languages. His work accordingly found no favour in contemporary academic schools, but it has been of great assistance to the self-taught... Budge had great physical energy and zest for life. He was a notable raconteur, and his company was appreciated by excellent judges. Impatient of idleness, pretentiousness, and humbug, he made many enemies and rejoiced in sincere friendships, sympathizing rather with the soldier than with the diplomat. A man of wide learning, he was critical of most of the "critical" methods of modern scholarship; intensely interested in the main lines of development in his subjects, he was less impressed by insistence on accuracy in minutiae than by sound judgement and real discoveries due to pioneer work."