Pahor Labib - Career

Career

Labib returned to Egypt and was appointed Lecturer in the Institute of Archeology at Cairo University in 1935. In 1945 he obtained the post of Keeper at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. He was later appointed director of the provincial museums, during which period he established a few museums around the country, and expanded the Aswan Museum. He was instrumental in transferring the Ismaila Museum from the Suez Canal Company to the administration of the Department of Antiquity. In 1951, he was appointed Director of the Coptic Museum, a post he kept until retiring in 1965.

Labib was chosen as acting director of the Egyptian Museum in the summer of 1964 to investigate the disappearance of a piece of Tutankhamun's treasures. He remained acting director of the Egyptian Museum for a year.

During his directorship of the Coptic Museum he turned the museum into a world famous research centre for Coptic Studies. He was one of the first to use the word "Coptology". Labib started the excavations in Abu Mena, Western Desert in 1951. Through his contacts, he managed to build a rest house that was spacious and well furnished (built by the German Archeological Institute, Cairo). Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria used to visit the place and even stayed there, to hold an early service in the site of the ancient Cathedral of Saint Menas. Later Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria started the building of the Monastery of Saint Mina. Labib was also involved with excavations in "Tel-Atrib", near the city of Banha in Lower Egypt; the site of a great Cathedral before the Arab invasion. Pope Shenouda III had an interest in and visited the site of these excavations.

Labib also contributed to the study of the Nag Hammadi texts. Translating these texts was a mammoth task as the Coptic language encountered was also dealing with philosophy. The UNESCO had an interest in these texts and established an international committee to translate and publish this work. Labib was a secretary, vice president, and president of this committee. The first publication of part of the collection was by him in 1956. Publications of the translated manuscripts carried on until 1984. Labib believed that this philosophy is Egyptian in origin (rather than Greek) and presented a paper on the subject to the First International Congress of Coptology in Cairo in 1976.

A Coptic exhibition was held in Villa Hegel in Essen (West Germany) in 1963 to which Labib was an invited guest.

Labib served on many committees both nationally and internationally owing to his expertise in many fields. In the national arena he served on dozens of committees including the highest in the land to award the most prestigious awards in Arts and Social Sciences in the country. He also served on many committees for Archeology and Tourism, including one for Coptic Tourism. Labib further served on the management boards of the Coptic and Islamic Museums in Cairo and on the council for "Greater Cairo". He was a council member of the Coptic Archeology Institute and a founding member of the Institute of Coptic Studies and La Societe de Saint Minas Le Miraculeux.

Labib was a founding member and President of the National Society of Art and served on the Council of the Society "Des Amis des Arts".

Labib taught at the University, both Egyptology and Coptic Language, especially the Hieroglyphic origins of Coptic words. His knowledge in both languages, with all their dialects and variations, was outstanding.

Labib was a member of the German Institute of Archeology, Berlin, and the Archeology Institute of the University of Prague, and the UNESCO Committee for Museums.