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 [2] [18]
Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book.
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.
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.
Djedkare Isesi was a pharaoh, the eighth and penultimate ruler of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt in the late 25th century to mid-24th century BC, during the Old Kingdom. Djedkare succeeded Menkauhor Kaiu and was in turn succeeded by Unas. His relationship to both of these pharaohs remain uncertain, although it is often conjectured that Unas was Djedkare's son, owing to the smooth transition between the two.
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.
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.
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 in 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.
Thomas Eric Peet was an English Egyptologist.
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 Gwyn Griffiths was a Welsh poet, Egyptologist and nationalist political activist who spent the largest span of his career lecturing at Swansea University.
Käthe Bosse-Griffiths was an eminent Egyptologist. Born in Germany, she moved to Britain as a political refugee and married a Welshman. She became a writer in the Welsh language, and made a unique contribution to Welsh literature.
Peter John Parsons, was a British classicist and academic specialising in papyrology. He was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2003.
Robert Kriech Ritner was an American Egyptologist most recently at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
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.
Winifred M. Crompton was a British Egyptologist and curator at the Manchester Museum.
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.