Arkell, (Revd) Anthony John

1898-1980

British archaeologist; he was born at Hinxhill Rectory, Kent, 29 July 1898, son of Revd John Norris A. and Eleanor Jessy Bunting; he was educated at Bradfield College and The Queen's College Oxford; his education was interrupted by World War I during which he served in the Royal Flying Corps, 1916-8 and was awarded MC, 1918; he continued in the RAF, 1918-9 and in 1920 joined the Sudan Political Service in which he held various political posts culminating in Acting Deputy-Gov. of Darfur, 1932-7; he was appointed first Commissioner for Archaeology and Anthropology in 1939; he returned briefly to Oxford, 1938-9; B. Litt. 1939; he then took up his new Sudanese post which he held until 1949 with a break in 1940-4 when he was Chief Transport Officer; he undertook the organization of the Museums of Antiquities and Ethnography at Khartoum and the creation of the Sudan Antiquities Service; he was editor of Sudan Notes and Records, 1945-8; he was appointed lecturer in Egyptology at University College London, 1948, later reader, 1953-63 and Curator of the Flinders Petrie Collection, 1948-63; he undertook the onerous task of unpacking and cataloguing the collection which had been in store since World War II; he remained Archaeological Adviser to the Sudan Government, 1948-53; he excavated at Khartoum in 1944-5 and in 1949-50 at Shaheinab; FSA and member of its council, 1956-7; ordained in the Anglican church; assistant curate of Great Missenden, 1960-63; vicar of Cuddington with Dinton, 1963-71; his publications include Early Khartoum, 1949; Shaheinab, 1953; A History of the Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1821, 1955; Wanyanga, 1964; and The Prehistory of the .Nile Valley, 1975; he died in Chelmsford, 26 Feb. 1980.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 25-6 fig. (portrait).