Egyptology

The core of RBSCL’s holdings in Egyptology are the personal libraries of Egyptologists Selim Hassan (1980) and Labib Habachi (1982). Subsequent acquisitions from scholars Constant de Wit, Shehata Adam and most recently Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Fayza Haikal, and Nabil Swelim expanded the collection further. 

The library possesses an important body of works written by the earliest scholars and excavators such as Jean-Francois Champollion, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, J, Auguste Mariette, Gaston Maspero, and W.M. Flinders Petrie. Highlights of the collection are the Description de l'Egypte produced by the scholars of Napoleon's 1798-1801 expedition, which ignited European interest in ancient Egypt, as well as the depictions of monuments in the volumes of prints by David Roberts. Also noteworthy are the several richly illustrated, oversize volumes on Egyptian monuments by the nineteenth-century German scholar Karl Richard Lepsius. These holdings are supplemented by early European works about ancient Egypt, like those of mid-16th century German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Hieroglyphica by Piero Valeriano and travel accounts by Scottish explorer James Bruce and others. Extensive additional holdings of travel literature covering ancient sites in Egypt are also available.

The library acquires current texts in the discipline and subscribes to leading international journals on Egyptology and archaeology. Also included are publications and excavation reports produced by such institutions as the Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte, Egypt Exploration Society, Institut français d'archéologie orientale, and Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut (Abteilung Kairo). RBSCL also offers a reference section with bibliographies, encyclopedias, and historical dictionaries.

RBSCL has taken a pioneering role in collecting the archives of Egyptian Egyptologists, including those of Ahmad Fakhry, Abdel Moneim Abu Bakr, Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Nabil Swelim, and Zaki Iskander. Other archives and personal papers collections include material related to Egyptology, like items on popularizing interest in the topic in the papers of Sayed Karim.

The library's photographic holdings include numerous prints dated from the 19th and early 20th centuries by leading photographs Émile Béchard, Pascal Sabeh, Antonio Beato, the brothers Zingaki, and Francis Frith, as well as collections of postcards, and slides depicting pharaonic era monuments and artifacts. Promotional material related to tourism in Egypt is also available.