Bernard Bruyère

Bernard Bruyère (born on November 10, 1879 in Besancon, died on December 4, 1971 in Chatou ) is a French Egyptologist.

He devoted a large part of his career to archaeological excavations and the scientific publication of the site of Deir el-Medina, the village of the craftsmen called to work on digging and decorating the tombs of the Valley of the Kings . He excavated the village and its surroundings from 1922 to 1940 and from 1945 to 1951 where he undertook a systematic and rational exploration of the archaeological zone. This important site has been thoroughly excavated and studied by Bernard Bruyère, who published the results of his work every year.

In 1922, Bernard Bruyère discovered the tomb TT290 in the necropolis of Deir el-Medina. This tomb had been stripped of almost everything in ancient times. The only remaining funeral equipment, discovered in the tomb, were some fragments of stelae and fragments of a wooden coffin belonging to Irunefer, a servant in the Place of Truth.

One morning in October 1922, he receives the visit of Howard Carter who comes to express his despair to his colleague: Lord Carnarvon, his patron, ends their collaboration, no longer granting Carter than this last excavation campaign which has just begun. Bruyère, who follows with interest the excavations of the English, reminds him that there remains one and only place he has not prospected: the foot of the entrance to the tomb of Ramesses VI. It will be the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun.

During the excavation campaign of 1927, Bernard Bruyère excavated tomb TT299, the second tomb of Inerkhau, which he had already found in 1922-23 according to the reports of Karl Richard Lepsius. He is then faced with major technical problems, including a rock of twenty tons that threatened to destroy what remained of the underlying structures.

On February 7, 1928 he discovered the untouched grave of Sennefer which was reconstituted in the middle of the exhibition "The artists of Pharaoh" at the Louvre in 2002; then the tomb of the lady Madja whose beautiful coffin found in his tomb is exposed to the Louvre Museum (room 14).

From 1949 to 1951, he finished with the excavation of the large well more than 50 m deep and 35 m wide at the opening. It was no doubt an attempt to find water from the water table. The inhabitants of the village used this giant hole for disposal of unwanted materials. B. Bruyère raised 6000 m³ of debris without mechanical means, and found more than 5000 ostraca in this deposit.

The IFAO has decided to put on line gradually all the notebooks of Bernard Bruyère, basic source of information on Deir el-Medinah. These are the original manuscript pages that have been scanned .