James Quibell

Who was James Quibell?

James Edward Quibell was a British Egyptologist, born in Newport, Shropshire.

He was educated at Adams' Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford. He became fascinated by the antiquities, and offered himself as a pupil to Professor Flinders Petrie, with whom he worked at Coptos in 1893, then at Nagada, Buleas, Thebes, El Kab, and Hierakonpolis in successive years. including Koptos and Ballas, the Ramesseum and Hierakonpolis. He also assisted Cecil Firth in his excavations in Saqqara. Between 1899 and 1904, he also served as chief inspector of antiquities for the Delta and Middle Egypt. Later, between 1904 and 1905, he was appointed as chief inspector at Saqqara. Between 1914 and 1923, he was a keeper in the Cairo Museum, and served as director of excavations at the Step Pyramid between 1931 and 1935.

After six months' study at the Humboldt University of Berlin he was appointed to the Catalogue Commission of the Egyptian Museum, and in 1899 as an inspector on the staff of the Antiquities Department, a colleague being Howard Carter.

He worked at Saqqara, in the Valley of the Kings, and at Hierakonpolis, where amongst other discoveries his team found the Narmer Palette in 1898.