A. J. Arkell

Anthony John Arkell MBE MC FSA (29 July 1898 – 26 February 1980), known as A. J. Arkell, was a British archaeologist and colonial administrator noted for his work in the Sudan and Egypt.

Biography Anthony John Arkell was born at Hinxhill Rectory, Hinxhill, Kent, England. He was the son of Reverend John Norris and Jessie Arkell (née Bunting). He won a scholarship to Bradfield College, He next won the Jordell Scholarship in Classics to The Queen's College, Oxford. Arkell received the Military Cross and Stagg received the Military Medal for their actions. He was instrumental in the creation in the National Museum of Antiquities in Khartoum. He encouraged Sudanese students and others to take an interest in their own history and archaeology, appointing them to the Antiquities Service as regional inspectors. Systematic mapping and recording of sites and finds was also implemented; this work later aided in the UNESCO campaign to salvage monuments from the rising Lake Nasser. The work was interrupted by World War II during which he served as Chief Transport Officer in the Sudan from 1940–4. As soon as he returned to his post, the first official excavations carried out by the Antiquities Service began on a prehistoric site near the Khartoum civil hospital, and later at Shaheinab in 1949, revealing information about Sudanese prehistory for the first time. The excavations at Khartoum revealed the existence of a pottery-producing culture that utilised stone tools, described as 'Mesolithic' who lived in a period when the climate was much wetter.

Upon his retirement from the Sudan he accepted the post of lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at University College London and became Honorary Curator of the Petrie Collection. Here he undertook the challenging task of unpacking the 800 crates into which the collection had been hurriedly packed in the early days of the war. Over the next 14 years he unpacked and stored the collection, cataloging at least a third of it himself. During this time he gained a deeper understanding for the history of Egypt, particularly the Predynastic period and in collaboration with his student P. J. Ucko published Review of Predynastic Development in the Nile Valley in Current Anthropology in 1965. He was promoted to Reader in Egyptian Archaeology in 1953 and retired in 1963. He had earlier published A History of the Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1821 in 1951. In 1960, after a short course at Cuddesdon College, he had been ordained into Holy Orders.

Personal life A. J. Arkell was married twice, first to Dorothy Davidson, with whom he had two children, and second to Joan Margaret Andrews. Arkell retired in 1963 and was ordained a minister. He had always wished to enter the church at the end of his life and so follow his father who, together with his mother, he spoke of with great respect. He died in Chelmsford on 26 February 1980, at the age of eighty-one.