author
Alfred Wiedemann
1856–1936
A German Egyptologist from a family of scholars, he helped bring ancient Egyptian history, religion, and literature to a wider reading public in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His books range from broad histories of Egypt to lively studies of myth, belief, and everyday culture.
1 Audiobook
The ancient Egyptian doctrine of the immortality of the soul
by Alfred Wiedemann
About the author
Born in Berlin on July 18, 1856, Alfred Wiedemann became one of Germany’s notable Egyptologists. He studied Egyptology and classical history in Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and Tübingen, earning his PhD at Leipzig in 1878. He later taught at the University of Bonn, where he spent much of his academic career.
Wiedemann wrote widely on ancient Egypt for both specialists and general readers. His work covered Egyptian history, religion, literature, and cultural life, and he published a long list of books that helped shape popular understanding of ancient Egypt in his time. He was especially interested in how Egyptian beliefs and texts could illuminate the civilization as a whole.
He came from a distinguished academic family: his father was the physicist Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann, and his brother Eilhard Wiedemann was also a scholar. Alfred Wiedemann died in Bad Godesberg on December 7, 1936.