George Gliddon

He was born in 1809 in St Thomas, Devonshire, England, the son of cousins Eleanor Gliddon and John G. Gliddon. He returned to England for his education, after which he worked in Glasgow at a counting house, but did not stay there long. Gliddon returned to Egypt by 1829, and worked for his father who was director of the Alexandrian Insurance Company. John was also promoted to consul, for the only consulate office in Egypt at that time. He became a United States vice-consul in the new consulate office in Cairo, subordinate to the office in Alexandria, beginning September 11, 1833. The consulate office in Cairo was closed in 1840, after which Gliddon discontinued his work on commercial ventures with people in the United States and sailed to England. ==Egyptology lectures==

Gliddon took a deep interest in the studies of Jean-François Champollion, Ignatius Bonomi, Henry Salt, Howard Vyse, and other Egyptian scholars and explorers. Richard K. Haight, sponsored Gliddon's lectures to spread knowledge about ancient Egypt in American cities. Sarah Rogers Haight, his wife, wrote about their travels to Egypt, which also sparked interest. Richard Haight also supported Gliddon as he studied with Egyptian scholars in Europe. Gliddon studied with Samuel Birch, Baron Bunsen, Émile Prisse d'Avennes, Karl Richard Lepsius, and Jean-Antoine Letronne. Gliddon created a Panorama of the Nile rolling painting show with four Egyptian mummies. In late 1851 he used it during a presentation at the Chinese Museum in Boston. In Philadelphia in 1852 he made souvenirs of the material used to wrap the mummies. Using mummies in presentations sparked interest and attendance at Egytology lectures. ==Study of Egyptian peoples' origins==

Crania Aegyptiaca With his father, Gliddon collected mummy skulls for Samuel George Morton, ==Evolving views on race of the Egyptians ==

While originally believing that the Egyptians were purely Caucasian, the authors of Types of Mankind (1854) modified their views based on excavations from earlier dynasties. In their view, the earliest Egyptians were neither Caucasian or Negro but an intermediate Negroid type. However, they still believed that pure Negroes existed in Egypt only as slaves: Specifically, in 1854, Josiah Nott and George R. Gliddon noted that according to majority of ethnographers and Samuel George Morton's own anthropological works, "the Fellahs of Upper and Middle Egypt, at the present day, continue to be an unmistakable race, and are regarded by most travelled authorities as the best living representatives of the ancient population of Egypt." They would also take the position that, "the iconographic monuments of the IVth, Vth, and VIth dynasties, is closely analogous to the predominant type of that day; which fact serves to strengthen our view that the Egyptians of the early dynasties were rather of an African or Negroid type-resembling the Bishari in some respects, and in others the modern Fellah, or peasantry of Upper Egypt." In the 19th century the word "Negro" is reserved only for people who display the highest degree of stereotypical black African characteristics, with the suffix oid in "Negroid" making the word literally mean "Negro like". From the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica "It is most convenient, however, to refer to the dark-skinned inhabitants of this zone by the collective term of Negroids, and to reserve the word Negro for the tribes which are considered to exhibit in the highest degree the characteristics taken as typical of the variety." Samuel Morton addressed several letters to George Gliddon and stated that he modified many of his old views on ancient Egypt, believing their origins to be similar to Barabra populations, but not Negroes. ==Personal life==

For a period of time, Gliddon lived in Bayswater, home to fashionable London socialites who lived a "kind of conjugal experiment". Gliddon was related to Leigh Hunt and his children, his sister Kate was the wife of Thornton Leigh Hunt and Hunt's daughter married George's brother John. Gliddon visitd the house, but never lived there. He was remembered as "that handsome Egyptologist, George Gliddon" by a regular visitor. Anne was an artist and illustrator. Gliddon and a 17-year-old Henry A. Gliddon went to the United States for another lecture series in major cities like Boston, New York, Charleston, and Philadelphia from October 1846 until August 1848. The couple had a son, Charles Americus Quarite Gliddon, who was born about 1847 with birth defects. ==Later years and death==

George Robbins Gliddon was an agent for the Honduras Railroad Company in 1857, hired for his experience opening the Suez or Overland route to India. He took a medical leave of absence and died in his hotel room in Panama of yellow fever on November 16, 1857. He was buried in Panama but later re-interred in Philadelphia at Laurel Hill Cemetery at the instigation of his friend, archaeologist E. G. Squier. Three years after his death, Anne (52, born in England) and Charles (13, born in England) lived on Long Island in Islip, New York. Charles was a talented artist, who died as a young man in 1872. She died in 1878. ==Publications==

Significant publications • • • • • • • • ==Notes==