Georg Schweinfurth was not just a renowned explorer of the African continent, but also a pioneer of Egyptology.Thanks to his botanical expertise, he played a crucial role in the scientific advancement of the field.To mark the 100th anniversary of his death, Schweinfurth’s legacy will now be honoured in a special exhibition organised by the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung.

It may come as a surprise to some to learn that research and discoveries made in the field of botany were an instrumental driving force for the advancement of the field of Egyptology in its very early days – yet this is exactly what the researcher and explorer Georg Schweinfurth (1836–1925) is credited with. The year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of his death. Renowned for his exploration of Africa and his patronage of a number of European institutions, he also played a key role in the early evolution of Egyptology, which, in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, increasingly incorporated scientific methods in addition to written and archaeological artefacts and remains, with botany proving to be a particularly valuable discipline in this regard. Schweinfurth was quick to recognise the significance of the botanical specimens retrieved in archaeological excavations and advocated that they be systematically collected and conserved.

He frequently assisted and supported archaeologists and museums by sharing his expertise. One notable example of this is the famous mummy cache found in Deir el-Bahari (West Thebes): a hidden burial site built in the tenth century BCE and rediscovered in 1881, in which over 50 royal mummies – including those of Ramses II and Thutmose III – had been kept safe from grave robbers for hundreds of years. At the behest of Egypt’s Antiquities Authority, Schweinfurth prepared, conserved and identified the floral garlands unearthed at the site, which had crowned the mummies of kings and high-ranking public servants.

A Multifaceted Individual and Champion of Early Archaeology

Schweinfurth would later donate several of the artefacts in question to a number of institutions, including Berlin’s Botanisches Museum and Ägyptisches Museum. Now, for the first time since 1992, visitors will have the chance to see a portion of these collections brought together again in a special exhibition – supplemented by recently fabricated replicas of the historic floral adornments found in the burial site.

Schweinfurth’s invaluable contribution to Egyptology also extended beyond his botanic expertise: the hand axes, prehistoric tools and ancient Egyptian artefacts that he collected were key to establishing Prehistoric Egypt as a research field in its own right. His extensive expeditions throughout Egypt, as well as its neighbouring desert regions and oases, yielded detailed maps and insightful journal entries. In addition to this, the exhibition features colourful textiles from the Faiyum Oasis on the River Nile, as well as previously unprocessed papyri and additional artefacts from his estate, all of which offer insight into a multifaceted personality who had a broad range of interests and was very well connected. In his capacity as a networker, Georg Schweinfurth was instrumental in establishing Egyptology as a science in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

A special exhibition of the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung in co-operation with the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, the Skultpurensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin as well as the Botanisches Museum der Freien Universität Berlin