Persona

Kirwan, (Sir Archibald) Laurence Patrick

1907-1999

British archaeologist; he was born in London, 13 May 1907, son of Patrick K. of Galway, Ireland and Mabel Norton; he was educated at Wimbledon College, Merton College, Oxford, and University College London where he studied under Petrie from 1927-8; he took part in the excavations of Guy Brunton in Middle Egypt, Dec. 1928-April 1929; he then assisted Carter and Lucas in the assembly of the shrines of Tutakhamun at the Egyptian Museum; he was appointed to the post of assistant director under Emery on the Archaeological Survey of Nubia, 1929-34 during which he participated in the discovery of the tombs at Ballana and Qustul in 1931; he returned to Oxford to study under Griffith; BLitt, 1935; he was then appointed Director of the Oxford University Excavations in the Sudan, 1934-7, excavating at Firka, 1934-5 and at Kawa with Macadam, 1935-6; he held the Tweedie Fellowship in Archaeology and Anthropology from Edinburgh University, 1937-9; he served on the joint staffs at the Offices of the Cabinet and Ministry of Defence during World War II rising to the rank of Lt.-Col., 1943; he then became Director and Secretary of the Royal Geographic Society, 1945-75 and editor of the Geographic Journal, 1945-78; Hon. Vice-President from 1981; he became adviser to the Sudanese Government during the Nubian rescue campaign, 1958-61; he briefly surveyed Faras with W. Y. Adams and encouraged the Polish excavation of that and other sites; he founded the British Institute of History and Archaeology in Eastern Africa with Sir Mortimer Wheeler; President, 1961-81; Hon. Life President from 1981; Visiting Professor at Cairo University, 1976; Mortimer Wheeler Lecturer at the British Academy, 1977; Hon. President of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society from 1992; he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Gold Medal, 1975; CMG, 1958; KCMG, 1972; he published with W. Emery, The Excavations and Survey between Wadi-es-Sebua and Adindan, 1935; with Emery, The Royal Tombs of Ballana and Qustul, 1938; The Oxford University Excavations at Firka, 1939; and with Macadam, The Temples of Kawa II, 1955; his collected articles were edited by T Hagg, L. Torok, and D. Welsby as Studies on the History of Late Antique and Christian Nubia, 2002; he died in London, 16 April 1999.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 297 fig. (portrait).