Richard William Howard Vyse

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Major-General Richard William Howard Vyse (25 July 1784 – 8 June 1853) was a British soldier, anthropologist and Egyptologist. He was also Member of Parliament for Beverley (from 1807 to 1812) and Honiton (from 1812 to 1818).

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[edit] Military career

Howard Vyse was commissioned into the 1st Dragoons in 1800. He transferred to the 15th Light Dragoons as a Lieutenant in 1801 and was promoted Captain in 1802 and Major in 1813. In 1815 he transferred to the 87th Foot and in 1816 to the 2nd Life Guards. He was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1819, Colonel in 1837, and Major-General in 1846.

[edit] Egyptologist

At Giza he and John Shae Perring worked with gunpowder forcing their way into several monuments, including the burial chamber of the pyramid of Menkaure.[1]

Vyse's gunpowder archaeology made one highly notable discovery in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Giovanni Battista Caviglia had blasted on the south side of the stress-relieving chamber (Davison's chamber) on top of the Kings chamber, a chamber discovered by Nathaniel Davidson in 1765, hoping to find a link to the southern air channel. But while Caviglia gave up, Vyse suspected that there was another chamber on top of Davison's chamber, since he could thrust a yard long reed though a crack up into a cavity. He therefore blasted straight up on the northern side, over three and a half months, finding four additional chambers.

Vyse named these chambers after important friends and colleagues; Wellington's chamber (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington), Nelson's chamber (Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson), Lady Arbuthnot's chamber (Anne Fitzgerald, wife of Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 2nd Baronet) and Campbell's chamber (Patrick Campbell, the British agent and Consul General in Egypt).

Just as amazing as the chambers were Vyse's discovery of numerous graffiti in the chambers, in red paint, dating from the time the pyramids was built. Along with lines, markers and directional notations were work gangs names, including cartouches of several pharaohs, concentrated in Lady Arbuthnot's & Nelson's chamber, but all four chambers contained graffiti. The previously discovered Davison's chamber contained no graffiti.

The now famous single instance of Pharaoh Khufu's name, compounded in a work gang inscription is found on the south ceiling towards the west end of Campbell's chamber. Today this chamber also contains a fair amount of 19th & 20th century graffiti. The other similar famous "Khnum-Khuf", also part of work gang graffiti, is found in Lady Arbuthnot's chamber. Several other compound cartouches can be found in this chamber too.

[edit] Controversy

There has been some degree of controversy regarding the validity of the graffiti discovery and its potential forgery by Vyse and his colleagues,[2] however given its precarious location, some traces into the cracks and joints of the walls, it is hard to argue it could have been inscribed after construction.[3]

[edit] Publications

  • Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh, 1837

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, 1997.
  2. ^ Richard William Howard Vyse Brief biography at Minnesota State Univesity, Mankato. Has incorrect date of death.
  3. ^ Werner, Miroslav. The Pyramids – Their Archaeology and History, p. 455.
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