Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/280

Wilkinson 

 WILKINSON, JOHN GARDNER (1797–1875), explorer and Egyptologist, born on 5 Oct. 1797 and baptised at Chelsea on 17 Jan. 1798, was the son of the Rev. John Wilkinson of Hardendale, Westmoreland, and descended from Sir  [q.v.] His father was a member of the African Exploration Society and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and his mother Mary Anne, daughter of the Rev. Richard Gardner, was a classical scholar. He is said to have developed a taste for antiquities and sculpture at an early age, his childish pleasure being to see the plates published by the learned societies to which his father belonged. His parents died while he was a minor, leaving him a competency. He became the ward of the Rev. Dr. Yates, who sent him in 1813 to Harrow school, to which he in later years manifested his attachment by presenting it with a collection of Egyptian and classical antiquities, such as he thought would have helped his studies when a schoolboy; and indeed he appears both at school and at Exeter College, whence he matriculated on 1 April 1816, to have utilised every opportunity that he had for familiarising himself with architecture and the history of art. He seems to have left the university without a degree (,, and in 1820 he went, partly for the sake of his health, to Italy. There he became acquainted with Sir William Gell, by whose advice he resolved to take part in furthering the study of Egyptology, which the researches of Thomas Young and Champollion were beginning to open out.

Wilkinson arrived at Alexandria in 1821, and, making Cairo his basis, spent twelve years in Egypt and Nubia. After devoting some time to the acquisition of Arabic, both spoken and written, he visited in 1823 the eastern desert of Upper Nubia in company with D. Burton. His account of this journey did not, however, appear till 1832, when an extract from his diary was published in the Geographical Society's 'Journal.' He twice ascended the Nile as far as the second cataract, and many times as far as Thebes, where he spent much of the years 1824, 1827, and 1828, and where in 1827 he carried on elaborate excavations and caused many of the tombs to be uncovered. During his residence in Egypt he became acquainted with many of the pioneers of Egyptology, and studied Coptic in order to be able to follow their researches; and he arrived independently at conclusions similar to those of Champollion (whom he never met), to whose interpretation of the hieroglyphs he contributed criticisms and corrections rather than positive additions. His first work bearing on Egyptian antiquities, called 'Materia Hieroglyphica: containing the Egyptian Pantheon and the succession of the Pharaohs from the earliest times to the conquest of Alexander, with Plates and Notes,' was printed at Malta in 1828, and followed by 'Extracts from several Hieroglyphical Subjects, with Remarks on the same,' printed at Malta in 1830, but with a dedication to Sir W. Gell, dated from Thebes, 1827. Both of these were printed in a limited number of copies, in some of which the author supplemented with his own hand the deficiencies of the Maltese printing-office. In 1830 he completed his 'Topographical Survey of Thebes,' of which the Royal Geographical Society undertook the publication.

His long residence in Egypt having begun to affect his health, Wilkinson returned to England in 1833, where he was elected F.R.S. on 18 Dec. 1834, and in 1835 published his first popular work, 'The Topography of Thebes and General Survey of Egypt,' which he had intended printing at Alexandria some years before, but had been prevented by the printer's death. This work contained the chief results of the author's researches in Thebes, where his discoveries in the tomb quarter by Karnak and the Ramesseum constituted his chief advance on the work of the authors of the 'Description d'Egypte;' but it also was intended to be a practical guide to European travellers. In the opinion of Letronne it was the completest and most substantial work on Egypt that had appeared since the French description, and the favourable reception accorded it induced the author to give the world his most important book, 'Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians' (3 vols. London, 1837), to which two more volumes on Egyptian religion and mythology were afterwards added. In this standard work the statements of ancient