Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was born in London on July 27, 1857. His fascination with the history and languages of Egypt and the Near East led him to Cambridge University, where he studied several ancient languages, including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Coptic Hebrew, Syriac, and Ethiopic. Budge was Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum for forty years. He directed several archaeological expeditions in Egypt, the Sudan, and the Near East for the British Museum. He also published a spectacular number of scholarly and semi-scholarly books and articles of somewhat mixed quality. In 1920, he received a knighthood. Budge died November 23, 1934, in London, and was buried in Nunhead Cemetery in south London, bequeathing his private library to Christ's College, Cambridge.