Livshitz Isaak

Livshitz Isaak (1896–1970) – Egyptologist, linguist, translator.

After a gymnasium in Nizhny Novgorod, he enrolled to the Medical Faculty of the Moscow University, but in 1919 he went to the Historical and Philological Faculty, In 1925, he graduated from the faculty of Social Studies of the Leningrad University and started to work at the Institute of language and Thought of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. under the leadership of N. Ya. Marr and I. G. Frank-Kamenetsky. He studied at the post-graduate courses in Egyptology. In 1936, he got his Candidate degree in Philology on the base of his works, without defense. Since 1948, he worked at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., at the same time making lectures. In 1955-1959, he was Researcher of the Institute of History of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. In 1959-1970, he worked at the Cabinet of the Ancient East of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. Doctor in Philology (1963).

He studied various issues of Egyptian language and writing, translated pieces of Ancient Egyptian literature, tales, for instance; he also considered the history of Egyptology. From the point of religious studies, the most interesting were his works on Ancient Egyptian epigraphic.

Compositions

A Fragment of One Egyptian Inscription with the Name of Thutmose III // Language and Thought. Vol. 2, 1934, pp. 129-130. (in Rus.)
Time and Space in Egyptian Hieroglyphic // Ac. of Sc. for Academician N. Ya. Marr. Moscow – Leningrad, 1935, pp. 223-246. (in Rus.)
A New Variant of the Myth on Birth and Death of the Sun // Vestmik drevnei istorii. 1948, No 3, pp. 184-193. (in Rus.)
From the History of Russian Egyptology: S. I. Kossakovsky. Report on the Hieroglyphic System of Champollion // Palestinian Collection. Iss. 3 (66), Moscow – Leningrad, 1958, pp. 151-170. (in Rus.)
Studying Egyptian Language in the U.S.S.R. Short Essay // Palestinian Collection. Iss. 6 (68). Moscow – Leningrad, 1960, pp. 116-142. (in Rus.)
Fragments of the Sarcophagus of Prince Khaf-Min // Research in the History of Culture of Peoples of the East: Collection of Articles for Acad. I. A. Orbeli. Moscow – Leningrad, Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., 1960, pp. 369-373. (in Rus.)
A Fragment of the Sarcophagus with a Piece of the Texts of Pyramides // Ancient World. Moscow, 1962, pp. 130-133. (in Rus.)
‘Burden of Sinuhe’ // Problems of the Social and Economical History of the Ancient World. Moscow – Leningrad, 1963, pp. 47-54. (in Rus.)
Drawing on a Fragment of the Sarcophagus of Khevit // Epigrafika Vostoka. Iss. 18, Moscow – Leningrad, Nauka Publishing House, 1963, pp. 2-6. (in Rus.)
Fairy-Tales and Novelettes of Ancient Egypt / Transl. and comm. I. G. Livshitz; edit. D. А. Olderogge. Leningrad, Nauka Publishing House, 1979. (in Rus.)

D. B.