français d'archéologie orientale. This occurred a few months before the death of Mariette, whom Maspero then succeeded as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. Maspero later claimed he only took the position to prevent it falling out of French hands by being given to the Emile Brugsch, who was German. After a brief vacation back in France to organise his affairs Maspero returned to Egypt in September 1881 to take up his position. Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4,000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed. In 1882 he led the first excavation at Lisht which resulted in the discovery of the eroded Pyramid of Amenemhet I. He dispatched Emile Brugsch to Luxor to supervise the removal of a cache of royal mummies that had recently been found. Basing himself on his official streamer Maspero himself took charge of work at Zawiyet el-Aryan, Dahshur and Meidum. In October he had to endure a three-week long bout of dysentery, and before the end of that same year had fallen down a tomb-shaft, had an attack of rheumatism and a minor stroke. Maspero also began plans to clear out the Luxor Temple. This would require compensating the owners of the various houses that had been constructed against, inside and on top of the temple. As the Antiquities Service was desperately short of funds he negotiated with Thomas Cook to introduce a visitors tax (later changed to an entry ticket) but this was insufficient. He plead to the British colonial authority but Sir Colin Scott-Moncreiff, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Public Works rejected his petition, claiming it was the practice in England for undertakings such as this to be funded by personal donations. A public appeal raised enough funds to commence clearance of the temple in 1884. As an aspect of his attempt to curtail the rampant illegal export of Egyptian antiquities by tourists, collectors and agents for the major European and American museums, Maspero arrested the