Richard B. Parkinson | |
---|---|
Born | Richard Bruce Parkinson 25 May 1963 |
Nationality | British |
Spouse | Timothy Griffiths Reid (m. 2005) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Egyptology |
Sub-discipline | |
Institutions |
Richard Bruce Parkinson (born 25 May 1963) is a British Egyptologist and academic. He is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford and a fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. Until December 2013 he was a curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, British Museum.
Parkinson was born on 25 May 1963. [1] He was educated at Barnard Castle School, then an all-boys private school in Barnard Castle, County Durham. [2] He read Oriental Studies (Egyptology with Coptic) at The Queen's College, University of Oxford, and graduated in 1985 with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. [1] [2] He then undertook research for his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree. His doctoral thesis was a commentary on The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant and was submitted in 1988. [3]
Parkinson was a Teaching Fellow at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford from 1988 to 1989. From 1989 to 1991, he worked at the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, British Museum as a Special Assistant in epigraphy. [1] He then became the Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow in Egyptology at University College, Oxford. [4]
In 1991, Parkinson became a curator of the British Museum as Assistant Keeper of Ancient Egyptian pharaonic culture. [5] His responsibilities included the maintenance and publication of ancient papyri written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and cursive hieratic, as well as inscribed material such as the Rosetta Stone. He was the supervisor of archived material, collections, and epigraphy, and the curator of the Nebamun wall-paintings. [5] He remained at the British Museum until the end of 2013. [2] [6]
On 1 October 2013, Parkinson was appointed statutory Professor of Egyptology in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. Spending the first term part-time, he took on the position full-time in January 2014. [7] [8] His inaugural lecture about the impact of ancient Egyptian poetry was accompanied by the actress and novelist Barbara Ewing, and was podcast. [9] [10] He is a fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford, and has been a director of the Griffith Institute, Oxford. [11]
From 1993 to 1998, Parkinson was editor of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology . [1] He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Göttingen in 2006, at the University of Cologne in 2009 and 2013, and the University of Mainz in 2011. [5] [6] In 2022, he was lead curator of the Bodleian libraries exhibition 'Tutankhamun: Excavating the archive', commemorating the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun with a display of the excavation's records in the Griffith Institute, Oxford.
Parkinson's main area of research is the interpretation of Ancient Egyptian literature. [5] As well as the philological study of manuscripts, he works on material contexts, actors’ perspectives, literary theory and modern receptions in literature, art and film; he also works on the history of Ancient Egyptian mathematics with Christopher D. Hollings. [12] As well as academic monographs and articles, he has written popular books on Egyptology and also a short LGBT world history, dedicated to his husband. [13] [14] In 2016 he gave the Oxford University annual LGBT History Month lecture on this, which was podcast: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/great-unrecorded-history-lgbt-heritage-and-world-cultures. In 2004 he collaborated in a translation of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit into hieroglyphs. [15]
Parkinson was awarded an honorary doctorate from the New Bulgarian University, Sofia in 2006 for his contributions to Egyptology. [5] [16]
Parkinson is openly gay. [17] He entered into a civil partnership with Timothy Griffiths Reid in 2005, and this was converted into marriage in 2014. [6]
Parkinson has type 1 diabetes and has spoken about the intense difficulties of this condition in the competitive academic environment of Oxford, and also those posed by sexuality in his Faculty [2] [18]
The Story of Sinuhe is a work of ancient Egyptian literature. It was likely composed in the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty after the death of Amenemhat I. The tale describes an Egyptian man who flees his kingdom, and lives as a foreigner before returning to Egypt shortly before his death. It explores universal themes such as divine providence and mercy. The oldest known copy of the text dates to the reign of Amenemhat III, around 1800 BCE. The work was so popular within Egypt that newer copies have been found ranging up to 750 years after the original.
The tomb of Tutankhamun, also known by its tomb number, KV62, is the burial place of Tutankhamun, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb consists of four chambers and an entrance staircase and corridor. It is smaller and less extensively decorated than other Egyptian royal tombs of its time, and it probably originated as a tomb for a non-royal individual that was adapted for Tutankhamun's use after his premature death. Like other pharaohs, Tutankhamun was buried with a wide variety of funerary objects and personal possessions, such as coffins, furniture, clothing and jewelry, though in the unusually limited space these goods had to be densely packed. Robbers entered the tomb twice in the years immediately following the burial, but Tutankhamun's mummy and most of the burial goods remained intact. The tomb's low position, dug into the floor of the valley, allowed its entrance to be hidden by debris deposited by flooding and tomb construction. Thus, unlike other tombs in the valley, it was not stripped of its valuables during the Third Intermediate Period.
Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century.
Neferirkare Kakai was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty. Neferirkare, the eldest son of Sahure with his consort Meretnebty, was known as Ranefer A before he came to the throne. He acceded the day after his father's death and reigned for around 17 years, sometime in the early to mid-25th century BCE. He was himself very likely succeeded by his eldest son, born of his queen Khentkaus II, the prince Ranefer B who would take the throne as king Neferefre. Neferirkare fathered another pharaoh, Nyuserre Ini, who took the throne after Neferefre's short reign and the brief rule of the poorly known Shepseskare.
The Griffith Institute is an Egyptological institution based in the Griffith Wing of the Sackler Library and is part of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, England. It was founded for the advancement of Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies by the first Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, Francis Llewellyn Griffith. Griffith bequeathed funds in his will for the foundation of the Institute and it opened on 21 January 1939, with its own independent committee of management. Rosalind Moss operated the Griffith Institute from its opening until the mid-1960s.
Francis Llewellyn Griffith was an eminent British Egyptologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Stephen Ranulph Kingdon Glanville, was an English historian and egyptologist. He was Edwards Professor of Egyptology at University College London from 1935 to 1946. He was then Sir Herbert Thompson Professor of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge from 1946 until his death in 1956, and additionally Provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1954.
Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev, formerly also known as Wladimir or Woldemar Golenischeff, was one of the first and one of the most accomplished Russian Egyptologists. He was one of the founders of the Cairo School of Egyptology and one of the most recognized authorities of the schools of Assyriology and Egyptology in Russia.
In mathematics, ancient Egyptian multiplication, one of two multiplication methods used by scribes, is a systematic method for multiplying two numbers that does not require the multiplication table, only the ability to multiply and divide by 2, and to add. It decomposes one of the multiplicands into a set of numbers of powers of two and then creates a table of doublings of the second multiplicand by every value of the set which is summed up to give result of multiplication.
Retjenu, later known as Khor, was the Ancient Egyptian name for the wider Syrian region, where the Semitic-speaking Canaanites lived. Retjenu was located between the region north of the Sinai Desert and south of the Taurus Mountains in southern Anatolia. The term Retjenu was used to refer to this geographical area since the Middle Kingdom. The geographical area of Retjenu were defined during the New Kingdom and considered to have been a collection of small states ruled by princes. The boundaries of the area considered Retjenu shifted throughout time due to military, political, and economic factors. Retjenu was divided into two geographical regions. Djahy the southernmost region covered the area between Askalon and Mount Lebanon stretching inland to the Sea of Galilee. Amurru the northern region stretched between the Lebanon and Taurus Mountains. During Thutmose III's military campaigns in West Asia, the area of Djahy was referred to as Upper Retjenu and generally covered the area of Canaan. Lower Retjenu was used to refer to the area of Amurru but also incorporated the cities located along Phoenician coast.
Nebka is the throne name of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Third Dynasty during the Old Kingdom period, in the 27th century BCE. He is thought to be identical with the Hellenized name Νεχέρωχις recorded by the Egyptian priest Manetho of the much later Ptolemaic period.
The Eloquent Peasant is an Ancient Egyptian story that was composed around 1850 BCE during the time of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. It is one of the longest Egyptian tales that has survived completed. The tale is about a peasant, Khun-Anup, who stumbles upon the property of the high steward, the noble Rensi son of Meru, guarded by its harsh overseer, Nemtynakht. It is set in the Ninth or Tenth Dynasty around Herakleopolis. This tale is described as an elaborate reflection on the connection – or disconnection – of ethical order and refined speech, as transliterated into refined writing.
Richard Anthony Parker was a prominent Egyptologist and professor of Egyptology. Originally from Chicago, he attended Mt. Carmel High School with acclaimed author James T. Farrell. He received an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1930, and a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1938. He then went to Luxor, Egypt to work as an epigrapher with the University of Chicago's Epigraphic and Architectural Survey, studying the mortuary temple of Ramses III. When World War II necessitated a temporary halt to the project, Parker came back to Chicago to teach Egyptology at the university. In 1946, he returned to Egypt to continue his work on the epigraphic survey, and soon rose to the position of field director.
Ancient Egyptian literature was written with the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature.
Egyptian medical papyri are ancient Egyptian texts written on papyrus which permit a glimpse at medical procedures and practices in ancient Egypt. These papyri give details on disease, diagnosis, and remedies of disease, which include herbal remedies, surgery, and magical incantations. Many of these papyri have been lost due to grave robbery. The largest study of the medical papyri to date has been undertaken by Humboldt University of Berlin and was titled Medizin der alten Ägypter.
John Wintour Baldwin Barns was a British Egyptologist, papyrologist, Anglican priest, and academic. From 1965 to 1974, he was Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford.
Nora Griffith was a Scottish Egyptologist, archaeologist, illustrator and conservator. On the death of her husband, the eminent Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith, she founded and endowed the Griffith Institute at Oxford University with their joint fortunes and collections.
Verena M. Lepper is a German Egyptologist and Semitist.
The Ramesseum magician's box is a container discovered in 1885–1886 in a tomb underneath the Ramesseum by Flinders Petrie and James Quibell, containing papyri and items related to magical practices.
The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by excavators led by the Egyptologist Howard Carter, more than 3,300 years after Tutankhamun's death and burial. Whereas the tombs of most pharaohs were plundered by graverobbers in ancient times, Tutankhamun's tomb was hidden by debris for most of its existence and therefore not extensively robbed. It thus became the first known largely intact royal burial from ancient Egypt.