Widely regarded as the foremost Egyptologist of his generation, he began his career teaching Egyptian language in Paris becoming a professor at the Collège de France.

In 1881, Maspero's investigation led to the discovery of a hidden tomb near Dayr al-Baḥrī, containing 40 mummies, including pharaohs Seti I, Amenhotep I, Thutmose III, and Ramses II.

During his second tenure as director general (1899–1914), Maspero regulated excavations, combated illicit trade, preserved monuments, and oversaw the archaeological survey of Nubia.

He authored the comprehensive Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique (1895–1897) and was the first editor and translator of the Pyramid Texts, known as the Book of the Dead.

His work extended to art, mythology, and religion, influencing many through his role as editor of the Recueil de travaux and Director of the Egyptian Service des Antiquités.

[4] It was while Maspero was in final year at the École normale in 1867 that friends mentioned his skills at reading hieroglyphics to Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, who was in Paris as commissioner for the Egyptian section of the Exposition universelle.

[4] Mariette gave him two newly discovered hieroglyphic texts of considerable difficulty to study, and the young self-taught scholar produced translations of them in less than a fortnight, a great feat in those days when Egyptology was still almost in its infancy.

[4] In November 1880 Maspero went to Egypt as head of an archeological mission sent there by the French government, which ultimately developed into the well-equipped Institut français d'archéologie orientale.

As the Antiquities Service was desperately short of funds he negotiated with Thomas Cook to introduce a visitors tax (later changed to an entry ticket) but this was insufficient.

He pleaded to the British colonial authority but Sir Colin Scott-Moncreiff, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Public Works rejected his petition, claiming it was the practice in England for undertakings such as this to be funded by personal donations.

As an aspect of his attempt to curtail the rampant illegal export of Egyptian antiquities by tourists, collectors and agents for the major European and American museums, Maspero arrested the Abd al-Russul brothers from the notorious tomb-robbing village of Gurneh (Kurna), who denied being responsible even under torture, then after a family dispute finally led the authorities to the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri in July 1881.

Maspero resumed his professorial duties in Paris teaching at the Collège de France and the École des Hautes Etudes from June 1886 until 1899, when, at 53, he returned to Egypt in his old capacity as director-general of the department of antiquities[5] and remained there until his retirement in 1914.

Maspero had already made some repairs and clearances there (continued in his absence by unofficial but authorized explorers of many nationalities) in his previous tenure of office, and now he set up a team of workmen under French Egyptologists and regularly visited to oversee its reconstruction work, opposing some Romantics who wished the ruins left as they were.

In 1903 an alabaster pavement was found in the court of the 7th Pylon, and beneath it a shaft leading to a large hoard of almost 17,000 statues, with every part of the dig drawn, recorded and photographed.

On Maspero's arrival in 1899 he found the collections in the Bulak Museum enormously increased, and while working to expand them further he superintended their transfer from Gizeh to the new quarters at Qasr El Nil in 1902.

[8] Maspero also set up a network of local museums throughout Egypt, including a new larger Cairo facility, to encourage the Egyptians to take greater responsibility for the maintenance of their own heritage by increasing public awareness of it.

Because of the long hours that he worked his eye-sight began to decline and so in the spring of 1914 he resigned his post in the hope of enjoying some remaining years to be devoted to his favourite studies, and to the congenial duties of Secretaire Perpetuel of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres.