sethe, kurt heinrich (1869-1934), German Egyptologist.
He studied Egyptology under Adolf Erman at Berlin University and was appointed professor of Egyptology at the University of Göttingen (1900), later succeeding Erman at Berlin (1923). He was a member of the British Academy. Sethe was, with Erman, one of the two greatest figures in Egyptian philology in the twentieth century. He worked with texts ranging from those of the early dynastic period to demotic and Coptic, making important discoveries in each. Of his many grammatical works, the great Das Ägyptische Verbum (3 vols. Leipzig, 1899-1903) was the most important. Though his principal works are in the field of Egyptology, he made notable contributions in the area of Coptic language and culture. His publications are listed in Kammerer, A Coptic Bibliography (1950, 1969).