Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards was born in London in 1909, five years before the start of World War I. Edwards was first educated at Merchant Taylor's School in London, where he studied biblical Hebrew. He later studied Arabic and Hebrew at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1932, Edwards was awarded the William Wright studentship in Arabic. After receiving his MSS doctorate in 1933, Edwards was appointed Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum in 1934.
For the fist few years with the British Museum, Edwards studied under
Glanville. In 1939, under his professional name, Dr. I. E. S. Edwards, he
published Hieroglyphic Texts for Egyptian Stellae, etc. In 1942, the same
year he was called to military duty, Edwards was elected Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries. Five years later, I. E. S. Edwards published The
Pyramids of Egypt. In 1955, Edwards was appointed Keeper of the New
Department of Egyptian Antiquities. In 1962, he was made a Fellow of the
British Academy and was awarded the CBE in 1968 for his services to the
British Museum.
In the field, Edwards studied the construction of the ancient pyramids,
placing his theories on the line as many thought they were unfeasible. One
theory he had was that ancient Egyptians used a ramp system to get the
large stones moved into place, during the construction of the pyramids.
Other Egyptologists claimed that the ramps would have had to be miles long
in order to support the massive stones and would have taken twice as much
effort to make the ramps as it would to make the pyramids themselves.
Despite a few theoretical set backs in his research, Edwards is marked as a highly intelligent and well respected Egyptologist. He wrote numerous letters to field representatives in an attempt to update their dating technologies to include carbon 14 tests. Before his retirement, Edwards was instrumental to the British Museum for arranging the Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. The exhibit brought over 1.5 million people, and Edwards' book, Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum, sold over 300,000 copies. After retiring from the British Museum in 1974, Edwards returned to the field for the UNESCO rescue of the Philae Temples. Dr. I. E. S.
Edwards spent eighty years of his life devoted to egyptological research,
during which he wrote and published many books about his life and
discoveries. Among his personal writings, such as, Early Dynastic Period in
Egypt, Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum: Oracular Amuletic Decrees of
the late New Kingdom, Treasures of Tutankhamun, Tutankhamun's Jewelry, and
From the Pyramids to Tutankhamun: Memoirs of an Egyptologist; Edwards also
is credited to co- writing and editing The Cambridge Ancient History:
Volume One, Part One through Volume Three, Part Two. Dr. Iorwerth Eiddon
Stephen Edwards, respected Egyptologist, died in September of 1996. He was
eighty-seven years old.
References:
1) Griffith Institute Archive.
www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/gri/4edwards.html.
2) Orwell Bookstore: author search.
www.orwellbooks.com
3)
www.touregypt.net
Edwards, I. E. S. From Pyramids to Tutankhamun:
4) Memoirs of an Egyptological Life. David Brown Book Company.
October 15, 2000.
American Journal of Science: British Museum Quarterly.