Obituary: Dominic Montserrat (original) (raw)

Dominic Montserrat, who has died aged 40, was an Egyptologist, papyrologist, writer and teacher of distinction in the face of adversity.

He was born with haemophilia in Slough, Buckinghamshire, and his life was a battle against ill health including hepatitis, developed through unscreened blood transfusions, and Parkinson's disease. After reading Egyptology at Durham University he did a PhD at University College London, specialising in Coptic, Greek and Egyptian papyrology.

He took a teaching job in Warwick University's classics department - offered to him, it was said, in a UCL lift between the ground and fifth floors - and his time there, from 1992 to 1999, was a great success. His study in a bleak building on campus was transformed into an eccentric "Aladdin's Cave" of eastern exotica surrounded by perfumes, artefacts, antiquities and books. However, ill health took its toll and he resigned to become a project development officer in the classics department at the Open University.

His first book, Sex And Society In Graeco-Roman Egypt (1996) was followed by Akhenaton: History, Fantasy And Ancient Egypt (2000). This drew together many of his interests and obsessions: ancient history, mythology, magic, religion, psychoanalysis and the influence of Akhenaton (the Heretic King) on modern literature and art. His productivity was astonishing, and he also sat on the committee of the Egypt Exploration Society, writing articles and reviews for their magazine Egyptian Archaeology.

In 2002, on behalf of the Petrie Museum at UCL, he curated a major touring exhibition, Ancient Egypt: Digging For Dreams, which was awarded the National Award for Excellence in 2002. It was probably the museum that had first stirred his interest in ancient Egypt, for he had worked in its archive as a volunteer between school and university .

His last major project was a television series called The Egyptian Detectives, co-presented with Miriam Cooke for the National Geographic Channel and Channel Five. Another television appearance saw him trying to be enthusiastic, with small success, on a house makeover programme where his opinions were sought on a Penge dining room decorated in the style of an Egyptian temple.

Dominic's colleagues valued his scholarship and lack of malice; students adored him for his good humour and lightness of touch on what might have appeared the driest of subjects; the porters and cleaners at Warwick remembered him years after he had left the university. Generosity was what attracted others to him.

Yet, he was also an intensely private individual and, like an exquisitely cut precious stone, the facets he allowed to be shown sparkled and shone in different directions. He bore his constant battles against ill health with stoicism, good humour and no trace of self pity.

He is survived by his parents and his partner Robert Lindsey.

·Dominic Montserrat, Egyptologist, born January 2 1964; died September 23 2004