Bruce, James (1730-1794)

bruce, james (1730-1794), Scottish traveler. He studied Oriental languages and traveled in North Africa. In Egypt, where he arrived in July 1768, he visited Luxor and Karnak and excavated the tomb of Ramses iii in the Valley of the Kings. In 1769 in Madinat Habu he acquired a Gnostic codex that was named for him, the Bruce Papyrus (Bruce Manuscript 96), and is still preserved in the Bodleian Library (cf. MacDermot, 1978). In November 1772, on the way back from Ethiopia, he visited Aswan. In 1773 he returned to England, where in 1790 he published his Travels.