The teaching activity of the founder of Czech Egyptology,
                               František Lexa, at the Charles University Faculty of Arts











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            * The teaching activity of the founder of Czech Egyptology, František Lexa, at the Charles
            Faculty of Arts
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            April marks 92 years since František Lexa, a freshly appointed private assistant professor
            Charles University, first stood before the students of the Faculty of Arts shortly after h
            and launched Egyptology courses taught in the Czech language.
                                                                                                      
            He was born on April 5, 1876 in Pardubice into the family of a local lawyer but grew up in
            Prague. During his studies at the Faculty of Arts he trained to become a high school profe
            mathematics and physics but also attended a philosophy seminar taught by Professor Masaryk
                                                                                                      
            after graduation he acquired a permanent position at the secondary grammar school in Hrade
            and decided to qualify as a private assistant professor of psychology. His thesis concentr
            the origin and psychology of writing systems, so Lexa decided to study all writing systems
                                                                                                      
            that time, starting with the Egyptian hieroglyphs.                                        
            Lexa’s attempts at translations from the Egyptian language caught the attention of Rudolf 
            a professor of oriental philology, who helped Lexa gain a three-semester scholarship to st
                                                                                                      
            Egyptology in Berlin and Strasbourg. There he began working on his thesis, but the war int
            the process and Lexa qualified as a university lecturer as late as the start of 1919.     


            Lexa was appointed regular professor of Egyptology in 1927 and for some time he was the so
            responsible for the whole Egyptology course. As of the summer semester of 1929/30 he was j

            Černý, who had just been appointed private assistant professor. Lexa was thus able to conc
            lectures mainly on the later stages of the old Egyptian language, i.e. the Demotic and Cop
            His Demotic lectures were especially significant as after 1934 Prague was for some time th

            city where it was taught and Lexa was therefore instrumental in maintaining the continuity
            studies in Europe. Demotic studies repeatedly attracted the Italian Egyptologist Giuseppe 
            professor at the Florence and Rome universities, to Prague in the 1930s.

            Besides teaching, Lexa was also involved in managerial work – in the academic year 1934/35
            of the Charles University Faculty of Arts. He continued lecturing until the closure of Cze
            in the autumn of 1939; in the following year he was officially pensioned. When universitie

            1945, Lexa returned to teaching at the Faculty of Arts – one of his students was his later
            Žába (1917–1971). After his return from England, Jaroslav Černý again participated in the 
            were plans for an Egyptology chair to be established for him at the Masaryk University in 

            eventually called back to become a professor of Egyptology at the University College Londo
            Lexa himself gave lectures until 1958. Shortly before that at the celebration of his 80th 
            summarized his teaching career in a few words that remain relevant to this day: “As I know

            my predecessors once knew, those coming after me already know more in certain fields than 
            future they will complete more work and better work than I have done. If it weren’t the ca
            my fault. It would prove that I was a bad teacher even though I did try hard.”

            You can find more information on the personality of Prof. Lexa in the e-publication Franti
            of Czech Egyptology.
            Prof. PhDr. Ladislav Bareš, CSc., ředitel Českého egyptologického ústavu FF UK