15 Facts About John Garstang

John Garstang was a British archaeologist of the Ancient Near East, especially Egypt, Sudan, Anatolia and the southern Levant.

John Garstang was the younger brother of Professor Walter Garstang, FRS, a marine biologist and zoologist.

John Garstang was born in Blackburn on 5 May 1876, the sixth child of Walter and Matilda Garstang.

John Garstang was educated at Blackburn Grammar School and in 1895 he obtained a scholarship for Jesus College, Oxford to study mathematics.

John Garstang excavated various sites in the vicinity, including the discovery of the great tombs at Beit Khallaf in 1901.

In 1902, John Garstang was appointed the honorary reader in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Liverpool.

In 1904, John Garstang founded the Institute of Archaeology, which was affiliated with the university.

On behalf of the institute, Garstang excavated sites in Egypt, Sudan and the Near East up to the out break of World War I Some of his assistant excavators include E Harold Jones, English artist and illustrator.

John Garstang taught at the Egyptology section of the Faculty of Arts when this was established in the 1920s.

From 1936 to the outbreak of World War II, John Garstang excavated Yumuk Tepe near Mersin.

John Garstang returned to Turkey after the War, and finished the excavation in 1948.

In 1948, John Garstang founded the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, assisted by other Anatolian archaeologists including Winifred Lamb, and acted as its first director.

John Garstang died some years later, in Beirut, on the return journey from a holiday cruise.

Garstang's posthumous monograph The Geography of the Hittite Empire was completed with the help of his sister R Garstang and his colleague Oliver Gurney after John was disabled by illness in 1953.

Many of John Garstang's excavations were never fully published in his lifetime and have subsequently been published by other authors after his death:.