Walter Ewing Crum

Walter Ewing Crum (22 July 1865 – 20 April 1944) was a Scottish coptologist, or scholar in Coptic language and literature. In 1939 he completed A Coptic Dictionary, a dictionary of translations from Coptic to English.

Early life and education

Crum was the eldest son of Alexander Crum of Thornliebank, Glasgow. He attended Eton and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1888, after which he continued his studies of Egyptology in Paris and in Berlin with Adolf Erman, who remained a lifelong friend.

Career

Crum spent much of his career cataloguing various Coptic materials, including the manuscript holdings of the John Rylands Library and the British Museum. The Coptic dictionary is his most prominent publication, and he wrote several additional books and many articles.

Recognition

He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Berlin and an honorary D.Litt. from Oxford University. He was a Fellow of the British Academy and was elected a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society shortly before his death. A festschrift, Coptic Studies in Honor of Walter Ewing Crum, was published in 1950 as a special issue of the Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute of America.

Works

• Catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the British Museum. British Museum (1905)
• A Coptic Dictionary. 6 vols. Oxford University/Clarendon Press, 1929–39. Repr. with introduction by James M. Robinson. Ancient Language Resources. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2005. ISBN 9781597523332.

Sources

• Neal A. Maxwell institute link to works by Crum on Coptic topics
• "A Bibliography of Walter Ewing Crum". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 25.2, December 1939. pp. 133–38. Completed in the obituary, December 1944.