Wilkinson, SIR JOHN GARDNER

Wilkinson, SIR JOHN GARDNER, Egyptologist, was born at Hardendale in Westmorland, 5th October 1797, had his education at Harrow and Exeter College, Oxford, and in October 1821 set out for Alexandria to devote himself to exploration. Making Cairo his headquarters, he travelled through and investigated almost every part of Egypt and Lower Nubia, twice ascended the Nile as far as the Second Cataract, spent a year at Thebes alone, and visited also the deserts on either side of the river, and the Egyptian oases, making indeed in these twelve years a complete survey of Egypt, and transmitting to the British Museum more than three hundred antiquarian objects. His Materia Hieroglyphica (1828), its supplement, devoted to Thebes alone (1830), and his Topographical Survey of Thebes (1830) he published during his first stay in the country. Next followed his Topography of Thebes (1835), and his famous work, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (3 vols. 1837), with its complement on the Religion and Agriculture (2 vols. and a vol. of plates, 1841). A new edition of the Manners and Customs, uniting both the original series, was edited by Dr Birch (3 vols. 1879). Wilkinson, who was knighted in 1839, again visited Egypt in 1841 and in 1843, as well as Syria, Constantinople, Tunis, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Montenegro. He paid a fourth visit to Egypt in 1848, a fifth in 1855, presented his collection of coins and antiquities to Harrow, and died 29th October 1875. Wilkinson's other works include books on Dalmatia, travellers' handbooks to modern Egypt, ancient Egyptian architecture, &c., together with the Egyptian notes to Rawlinson's Herodotus.