maspero, gaston camille charles (1846-1916),
French Egyptologist. He was born in Paris and was educated at the Ecole normale in Paris. He was appointed professor of Egyptian philology and archaeology in the Collège de France in 1874 and went to Egypt in 1880 as head of the archaeological mission that later became the Institut français d'Archéologie orientale. Then he succeeded A. E. Mariette as director of the Bulaq Museum and Service des Antiquités (1881-1886). He expanded the Service to a regular department with five inspectorates, thus inadvertently helping to reveal the importance of Coptic antiquities.
Of his enormous list of publications only very few touched the field of Coptology. His real contribution to Coptic studies was realized in the person of his son Jean Gaston, whom he had trained in Coptic.