Thomas Schneider (Egyptologist)

Thomas Schneider (born 6 September 1964 in Göttingen) is a German Egyptologist.

Thomas Schneider began his studies in 1984 at the University of Zurich, focussing on history, Egyptology and Hebrew. He transferred to the University of Basel in 1986, where he achieved a MA in Egyptology, Ancient History and Old Testament Studies in 1990. He carried out further study at the Collège de France in Paris before completing his PhD in Egyptology at the University of Basel in 1996. In 1999 he completed his habilitation at the same university.

Thomas Schneider became the professor of Egyptology at the University of Wales, in Swansea. Before that, he was a visiting professor at the Vienna, Warsaw and Heidelberg, professor of the National Swiss Research Association at the Institute of Egyptology at Basel and participated in the MISR Project (Mission Siptah-Ramses X in the Valley of the Kings) of the University of Basel. Since 2007, he has been an Associate Professor of Egyptology and the Near East at the University of British Columbia.

Schneider published the works of Otto Rössler (de) Gesammelte Schriften zur Semitohamitistik (Collected Works on Afro-Asiatic languages) stating that "none of the published works of this scholar have been excluded from the new publication." But in fact, he excluded a large portion of Rössler's numerous Nazi writings, written before 1945, which were produced in close collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office, where he worked as an "expert" to help propagate the idea of Hitler as a savior figure for contemporary Islam in order to improve Nazi Germany's place in the Arab world.

Since 1987, Thomas Schneider has pursued various research interests focussed on Egypt. His main areas of research are the political, cultural and intellectual history of Egypt, the relationship of ancient Egypt to the Near East, North Africa and the Aegean, the phonology of ancient Egyptian, connections between ancient Egyptian and the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the historyof Egyptology.

• Asiatische Personennamen in ägyptischen Quellen des Neuen Reiches (Asiatic personal names in Egyptian Sources of the New Kingdom) (= Orbis biblicus et orientalis. Vol. 114). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Freiburg (Schweiz) 1992, ISBN 3-525-53748-4.
• Ausländer in Ägypten während des Mittleren Reiches und der Hyksoszeit. Teil 1: Die ausländischen Könige (Outlanders in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos period. Part 1: The Outlander Kings) (= Ägypten und Altes Testament. Vol. 42). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 3-447-04049-1.
• Ausländer in Ägypten während des Mittleren Reiches und der Hyksoszeit. Teil 2: Die ausländische Bevölkerung (Outlanders in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos period. Part 2: The Outlander Populations) (= Ägypten und Altes Testament. Band 42). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04906-5.
• "Ägyptologen im Dritten Reich. Biographische Notizen anhand der sogenannten „Steindorff-Liste“." (Egyptology in the Third Reich. Biographical Notices based on the So-Called "Steindorff List") In Thomas Schneider, Peter Raulwing (Ed.): Egyptology from the First World War to the Third Reich. Ideology, scholarship and individual biographies. Brill, Leiden, 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-24329-3, pp. 120–247.