German Egyptologist who led the Prussian expedition and survey of Egyptian monuments in 1842-1845. He also worked in Sudan and Palestine, sending some 15,000 antiquities and plaster casts back to Prussia. He published the results of the expedition in a 12-volume work, "Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien" (1859) which still provides useful information for archaeologists. He is credited with virtually recreating Egyptology as a subject after the premature death of Jean François Champollion doing further work on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.