Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797-1875) – antiquary and traveller – was the foremost Egyptologist in Regency-era Britain. Like William Flinders Petrie, Wilkinson used an unusual middle name, which was originally the first part of a double-barrelled surname, as if a first name. His father was John Wilkinson, while his mother’s maiden name was Mary Anne Gardner. Unfortunately, both passed away while Wilkinson was a young child, but they had already given him an avid interest in other societies and in travel, an aptitude for languages (primarily Greek and Latin), and an excellent artistic hand. Today Petrie is conventionally regarded as the foremost pioneer – even ‘founding father’ – of British Egyptology in the 19th century, though he was only active in the final two decades. For most of the preceding three-quarters of the century, and above all in the 1820s to 1840s, Wilkinson was regarded as the subject’s leading light, domestically and internationally.
Europe and Egypt
Wilkinson, like many relatively wealthy young people of his day, embarked on the Grand Tour of Europe after finishing at the University of Oxford, visiting the historic towns and cities of France and Italy, and courted some danger by climbing Mount Vesuvius. He might never have ventured to Egypt were it not for a meeting in Naples with the British antiquarian William Gell. It is no exaggeration to say that this meeting changed his life. Gell suggested that Wilkinson might accomplish useful scholarly work in Egypt, and he put his extensive personal library at the disposal of the young man, enabling him to catch up on all the hot topics of the day. Wilkinson’s notebooks from this time contain copious notes from respected works including Frederick Lewis Norden’s Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Vivant Denon’s Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, and William Richard Hamilton’s Aegyptiaca. Gell provided tutoring in hieroglyphs as well. Sometimes he was correct, at other times wildly off-course. Within a short time, Wilkinson (at the age of 24) embarked for Egypt with a travelling companion, James Samuel Wiggett. The journey, by sail, took the best part of a month. The two men first set foot in Alexandria in November 1821.
Wilkinson, like most travellers of his day, was underwhelmed by Alexandria, which had shrunk considerably since antiquity, so there were few traces of its most famous monuments. Cairo, with its dozens of mosques and Islamic architecture, was more impressive, as were the Giza pyramids. Unlike visitors today, Wilkinson was able to climb the pyramids of both Khufu and Khafra. He then ventured up the Nile, stopping on the way at ancient sites including Luxor and Aswan, and reaching as far as Abu Simbel. At this point, Wiggett turned back, but Wilkinson stayed on for 12 years, embarking on a study programme exactly as Gell had suggested.
