His eldest son, Eilhard Ernst Gustav, born at Berlin on the 1st of August 1852, became professor of physics at Erlangen in 1886, and his younger son, Alfred, born at Berlin on the 18th of July 1856, was appointed to the extraordinary professorship of Egyptology at Bonn in 1892.
In 1872 he was chosen professor of Egyptology at Strassburg.
In 1864 he was consul at Cairo, in 1868 professor at Göttingen, and in 1870 director of the school of Egyptology, founded at Cairo by the khedive.
He thenceforth became passionately interested in Egyptology, devoted himself to the study of hieroglyphs and Coptic, and in 1847 published a Catalogue analytique of the Egyptian Gallery of the Boulogne Museum; in 1849, being appointed to a subordinate position in the Louvre, he left Boulogne for Paris.
From 1832 to 1837 there was a pause in the march of Egyptology, and it seemed as if the young science might be overwhelmed by the storm of doubts and detraction that was poured upon it by the enemies of Champollion.