Zone du titre et de la mention de responsabilité
Title proper
Dénomination générale des documents
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Notes du titre
Niveau de description
Cote
Zone de l'édition
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Zone des précisions relatives à la catégorie de documents
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Zone des dates de production
Date(s)
-
1916-1942 (Production)
Zone de description matérielle
Physical description
13 cm of textual records
101 lantern slides : b&w ; 8 x 8 cm
Zone de la collection
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Zone de la description archivistique
Nom du producteur
Notice biographique
Samuel Alfred Browne Mercer, BD, MA, PhD, DLitt, LlD, DD, FRGS (Ang.), was an Episcopalian minister who became Canada’s foremost Egyptologist during his lengthy career at the University of Toronto. He was a distinguished orientalist and authority on Egyptian hieroglyphics. Mercer was born in 1879 in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Browne Mercer. His early education was in St John’s and later at Harvard University. From 1922 to 1923, Dr Mercer was Dean of Bexley Hall at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. On 1 October 1923, he was appointed to University of Toronto’s Trinity College as Dean and Professor of Divinity and remained there from 1924 to his retirement as Professor of Semitic Languages and Egyptology. In 1946 he retired to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to the first translation and commentary of the ancient Pyramid Texts. It was published in 1952.
An active scholar, he held 12 degrees from various universities, published 29 books in his field, and read more than 50 ancient and modern languages. During one of his many trips to the Middle East and Africa, he was present at the opening of the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. On another field trip to Ethiopia, he discovered a manuscript of the Book of Ecclesiastes that was 200 years older than any previously known.
Mercer married Genevieve, daughter of John Lewis Magee, on 15 August 1910. He died in Toronto on 10 January 1969 at the age of 89, leaving his daughter, Mrs Donald (Harriet) Briggs
of Burbank, California, and two sisters, Miss Ethel Mercer and Mrs Ross (Charlotte) Spaulding, both of Toronto.
Historique de la conservation
Found in Trinity College by Harold Nahabedian in 1981, possibly received from Mercer’s sister’s husband, Ross Spaulding. The original box was received in Toronto on 9 November 1960 from Attelborough, Massachusetts. An undated letter from Spaulding with the list
of textual material outlines why these manuscripts were not published.
Portée et contenu
Fonds comprises handwritten and carbon copies of the manuscripts for two books: “A Study in the Idea of God” and “Civilization in the Making.” As well, there is a Sign-List for Pre-Hammurabi Contract Tablets. There are some 100 lantern slides that Mercer was famous for using in his lectures. Some of these slides by photographer A.J. Reading show titles for the images; however there is no listing of them.
Zone des notes
État de conservation
Source immédiate d'acquisition
Received from Harold Nahabedian in 1981.
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
Condition and fragility of slides may affect access.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Public domain
Finding aids
Finding aid and file list available. Finding aid attached.
Associated materials
See <i>Trinity University Review</i>, volume LIX, Christmas 1946, report upon Mercer’s retirement from Trinity.