Labib Habachi (لبيب حبشي; April 18, 1906 – February 18, 1984) was a Coptic Egyptian egyptologist.
Dr Habachi spent 30 years in the Antiquities Department of the Egyptian Government, ending his career as Chief inspector. During this period he spent an enormous amount of time in numerous dig sites in Egypt and the Sudan. He left government work to accept a position at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as an Archaeological Consultant to its Nubian Expedition.
Between 1929 and 1939, Pierre Montet excavated at Tanis, finding the royal necropolis of the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasties — the finds there almost equalled that of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. He believed that he found the location of Avaris, and this opinion was widely accepted at the time.
When a detailed study of the topography of the site and its surroundings was made by Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in the 1980s, Habachi's hypothesis was confirmed. Bietak's mission revealed that the actual Hyksos capital was indeed Tell al-Dab'a.
"Khata'na-Qantir: importance". Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Egypte, Vol. LII,1 (1952), p. 443-562
Tell Basta. SASAE, cahier 22. Cairo, 1957
with Henry Riad: Aswan: the town with a glorious past and a promising future. Cairo, 1959
Features of the deification of Ramesses II. ADAIK, Vol. 5. Glückstadt, 1969
The second Stela of Kamose and his struggle against the Hyksos ruler and his capital. ADAIK, Vol. 8. Glückstadt, 1972
The Obelisks of Egypt: Skyscrapers of the Past. Scribner's Sons, 1977
with Pierre Anus: Le tombeau de Naÿ à Gournet Marʻeï (no. 271). Cairo, 1977
Sixteen studies on lower Nubia. SASAE, cahier 23. Cairo, 1981
Elephantine IV. The sanctuary of Heqaib (2 vols.). ADAIK, Vol. 33. Mainz, 1985
Studies on the Middle Kingdom. Studia Aegyptiaca, Vol. 10. Budapest, 1987
with Zakī Tāwaḍrūs: في صحراء العرب والأديرة الشرقية. الحلقة الأولى. في الآثار الشرقية / تأليف لبيب حبشي، زكي تاوضروس (Fī ṣaḥrāʼ al-ʻArab wa-al-adyirah al-sharqīyah: al-ḥalqah al-úlá fī al-āthār al-Qibṭīyah). Maktabat Madbūlī (Cairo), 1993
