John A. Wilson

Who was John A. Wilson?

John Albert Wilson was an American Egyptologist who was the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.

After graduating from Princeton University in 1920 he taught English at the American University in Beirut. There he met faculty member Harold H. Nelson who introduced him to hieroglyphics and in 1923 to the famous Egyptologist James Henry Breasted. He was offered by Breasted a fellowship at the Oriental Institute, where he earned his doctorate in 1926.

He was sent to Luxor by Breasted as an epigrapher and after further study in Munich and Berlin he returned to Chicago and was appointed associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago in 1931. He succeeded Breasted as director of the Oriental Institute when he died in 1936. He continued as Director until 1946 after leading the Institute through a difficult financial period. He was honored by being named Distinguished Service Professor in 1953.

With the building of the Aswan Dam he was appointed as the American representative and eventually became the chairman of the UNESCO Consultative Committee for the Salvage of the Nubian Monuments.