Statue Auguste Mariette - Boulogne-sur-mer

This beautiful square was built as a tribute to Egyptologist Auguste Mariette Pacha .

Together with Jean-François Champollion , Auguste Mariette is one of the two founders of Egyptology . In 1841, when he was a modest teacher at the high school in Boulogne-sur-Mer and a journalist in his spare time, he became interested in ancient civilization when he discovered the few Egyptian artifacts that the Boulogne museum possessed at the time. A few years later he declared: "I entered Egypt through the mummy in the Musée de Boulogne".

He learned hieroglyphics, Coptic, Syriac and Aramaic and gave up teaching to work as a clerk at the Louvre (formerly Charles X), where he accepted a thankless and poorly paid job. He was noticed by Emmanuel de Rougé and Charles Lenormant and was sent by the Louvre to Egypt in 1850 to buy Coptic manuscripts . The deal fell through and he used the money to excavate at Saqqarah, after admiring the plain from the walls of Cairo, with the spectacle of the pyramids, the Nile and the plain of Saqqarah before his eyes: "There, almost within reach, lay a whole world of tombs, steles, inscriptions and statues. What more can I say?

In addition to a number of prestigious discoveries, including the Serapeum at Memphis in 1850 and excavations at Giza, Saqqarah, Abydos, Thebes, Elephantine and Meïdoum, he was responsible for a large part of the collections at the Louvre, where he was appointed assistant curator in 1855.

Mariette did not forget his hometown, however. He donated 150 objects to the city , thus completing a first collection of Egyptian artifacts.

In 1882, a year after his death, the city inaugurated a monument in his honour . It was designed by Henri-Alfred Jacquemart (1823-1896). The monument consists of a stone pyramid on which a bronze statue of the famous Boulonnais stands. Mariette's right hand rests on the head of Isis. At the foot of the monument, two sphinxes welcome visitors. The monument is surrounded by wrought iron gates.

Willem Vandenameele