Background
Iorwerth Edwards was born on July 21, 1909 in London, in the family of the Edward Edwards and Ellen Jane Higgs.
Iorwerth Edwards was born on July 21, 1909 in London, in the family of the Edward Edwards and Ellen Jane Higgs.
United Kingdom attended Merchant Taylors' School, where he studied Hebrew, and then Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, gaining a first-class in Oriental Languages. He was awarded the William Wright studentship in Arabic and received his doctorate in 1933.
In 1934 Edwards joined the British Museum as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. He published Hieroglyphic Texts for Egyptian Stellae in 1939. During World War II he was sent to Egypt on military duty. In 1946 he wrote The Pyramids of Egypt, which was published by Penguin Books in 1947. In 1955 he was appointed the Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum and organized the Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. He remained there until his retirement in 1974.
On leaving the British Museum he worked with UNESCO during the rescue of the temple complex at Philae. He was also Vice-President of the Egypt Exploration Society, a Fellow of the British Academy (1962) and was awarded the CBE in 1968 for his services to the British Museum.
Institute de France, Academy, des Inscriptions et Belles lettres. Institute d'Egypte; Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, Brussels. German Archaeological Institute.
Edwards married Elizabeth Lisle in 1938. They had a daughter and a son.