Alan Gardiner

Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner
Tutankhamun's tomb excavation
Children	3, including Rolf Gardiner and Margaret Gardiner
Relatives	H. Balfour Gardiner (brother) Martin Bernal (grandson) John Eliot Gardiner (grandson)

Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner,

. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century.

Personal life

Gardiner was born on 29 March 1879 in

.

At school he developed an interest in ancient Egypt, and in 1895–96 he studied under the French archaeologist

In 1901, after graduating, he married Hedwig von Rosen in Vienna. They had two sons and a daughter, including the rural revivalist campaigner Rolf Gardiner, and Margaret Gardiner, a patron of the arts.^[1]

Gardiner moved to Iffley, near Oxford in 1947. He died here on 19 December 1963 and, after cremation, his ashes were interred in Iffley churchyard.^[1]

Career

In 1902 Gardiner moved to Berlin, to help gather material for

Returning to Egypt in 1915, while working on inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, he identified an unknown hieroglyphic script as the earliest known Semitic alphabet, probably the ancestor of all later Semitic and European ones.^[1]

After Howard Carter discovered the near–intact tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922, Gardiner provided advice and support. This included helping to decipher inscriptions and seal impressions found in the tomb, and advising on Lord Carnarvon's exclusive contract with The Times, and during the 1924–25 legal dispute with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities on access to the partly-excavated tomb.^[4]

Gardiner continued to research and publish books and articles until the early 1960s.^[5] He however exercised an influence on Egyptology far beyond his publications. Although he held no important academic post, he was universally respected as a senior member of the academic community, and was often consulted on academic appointments.^[1] He was a prominent figure in the Egypt Exploration Fund and served as honorary secretary for 1917 to 1920, and later served as its president.^[5]

During his career, Gardiner obtained a number of academic honours, including DLitt from Oxford (1910), Fellow of the British Academy (1929),^[1] election to the American Philosophical Society (1943),^[6] an honorary DLitt from both Durham (1952) and Cambridge (1956),^[5] and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1957).^[7] He was knighted in the 1948 Birthday Honours list.^[8]

Works

Gardiner's publications include a 1959 book on his study of "The

" and his 1961 work Egypt of the Pharaohs, which covered all aspects of Egyptian chronology and history at the time of publication.

His works related mainly to ancient languages, with his major contributions to ancient

. Publishing Egyptian Grammar produced one of the few available hieroglyphic printing fonts.

In 1914 he helped establish the

Selected bibliography

• The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden (Pap. Leiden 334 recto). Leipzig, 1909 (reprint Hildesheim - Zürich - New York, 1990).
• A Topographical Catalogue of the Private Tombs of Thebes, with Arthur E.P. Weigall, London, Bernard Quaritch, 1913 (read online).
• "New Literary Works from Ancient Egypt", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 1 (1914), 20-36 and 100–106.
• Notes on the story of Sinuhe, Paris, Librairie Honoré Champion, 1916 (Read online, Kelvin Smith Library).
• "The Tomb of a much-travelled Theban Official", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 4 (1917), 28–38.
• "On Certain Participial Formations in Egyptian", Rev. ég. N.S. 2/1-2 (1920), 42–55.
• "The Eloquent Peasant", JEA 9 (1923), 5-25.
• ISBN 0-900416-35-1
• The Theory of Speech and Language, 1932
• "The Earliest Manuscripts of the Instruction of Amenemmes I", Mélanges Maspero I.2, 479–496. 1934
• Ancient Egyptian Onomastica. Vol. I—III. London, 1947.
• The Ramesseum Papyri. Plates (Oxford 1955)
• The Theory of Proper Names: A Controversial Essay. London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.
• Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford 1961

See also

• Gardiner's Sign List
• Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Henry Balfour Gardiner
  (composer), his brother
• Margaret Gardiner, his daughter
• Rolf Gardiner, his son
• John Eliot Gardiner, his grandson
• Martin Bernal, his grandson

References

External links

• Gardiner, Alan H. (1904). "The Installation of a Vizier". Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l'archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes. 26–27: 1–19. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
• Gardiner, Alan H. (1913). "Proceedings of the session: Dr. Alan H. Gardiner on the Nature of the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing". Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society (published 1914): 18–19. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
• Works by or about Alan Gardiner at Wikisource