Bob Brier

Attribution:

edapsey

Bob Brier

Egyptologist, Paleopathologist and Mummy Expert

13 December 1943

Bob Brier is a well-known American Egyptologist and paleopathologist, sometimes know as "Mr Mummy" for his expertise in the field of mummies and mummification. He is a regular face on TV channels such as National Geographic and Discovery Civilizations, where he often appears in documentaries about ancient Egypt.

A native of The Bronx, New York, he studied for his undergraduate degree at City University of New York, before joining the research staff at the Institute of Parapsychology in Durham, North Carolina. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1970, then went on to teach at Long Island University after 1972, eventually rising to chairman of the philosophy department from 1981 to 1996.

Brier's research has seen him study such famous mummies from throughout history as Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, Vladimir Lenin and Eva Perón. In 1994, he and a colleague, Ronald Wade, became the first people in 2,000 years to use ancient Egyptian techniques to mummify a human cadaver. It was this project that earned Brier his affectionate nickname.

Brier is one of the most high profile supporters of French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin's theory on how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built (by use of an internal ramp). In 2008, he scaled the side of the Pyramid - together with a National Geographic camera crew - and entered a small hidden room behind a notch in the pyramid's facade, which Houdin speculates is one of many similar rooms where the pyramid's stone blocks were turned during their ascent of the structure. He co-authored a book with Houdin on this theory titled The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery.