John A. Wilson (Egyptologist)
Encyclopedia
John Albert Wilson was an American Egyptologist who was the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

After graduating from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 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
James Henry Breasted
James Henry Breasted was an American archaeologist and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the University of Chicago, where he continued to...

. He was offered by Breasted a fellowship at the Oriental Institute
Oriental Institute, Chicago
The Oriental Institute , established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies.- History and purpose:James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum...

 where he earned his doctorate in 1926

He was sent to Luxor
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...

 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
Aswan Dam
The Aswan Dam is an embankment dam situated across the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. Since the 1950s, the name commonly refers to the High Dam, which is larger and newer than the Aswan Low Dam, which was first completed in 1902...

 he was appointed as the American representative and eventually became the chairman of the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 Consultative Committee for the Salvage of the Nubian Monuments.

He had many honors conferred upon him by various universities and societies including: D. Lii. by Princeton (1961), D.H.L by Loyola University of Chicago, elected as a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Society (1954), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 (1968) and corresponding member of the Institut d'Egypte
Institut d'Égypte
The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy formed by Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out research during his Egyptian campaign.-Early work:It first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries...

 (1969). Through a benefactor the John A. Wilson Professorship of Oriental Studies was inaugurated in 1968. On his seventieth birthday former students and colleagues presented him with a book Studies in Honor of John A. Wilson (1969).

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