Ian Jenkins was born in
Chippenham in
Wiltshire, to the civil servant Ivor Jenkins and his wife Lena (). He was educated at
The Chippenham School and the
University of Bristol, where he read Ancient Greek with Archaeology and Ancient History. After serving an apprenticeship as a stonemason in Bath, he joined the
British Museum in 1978. Jenkins divided his research interests between Greek architecture and sculpture and the history of the reception of Classical art and architecture in the modern era. His work on the history of collecting included studies on the Paper Museum of
Cassiano dal Pozzo and the archive of documents and drawings compiled by the 18th-century antiquary and collector,
Charles Townley, which came into the museum's possession in the 1990s. Jenkins curated many of the permanent galleries at the British Museum including Greek and Roman Life (Room 69), Hellenistic World (Room 22), the
Parthenon galleries (Room 18), and the display of the
Bassae sculptures in the British Museum. He was a major participant in the team responsible for the Enlightenment Gallery (Room 1). He co-curated the special exhibition
Vases and Volcanoes in 1996, on the life and collection of Sir
William Hamilton and his circle. He lectured about this and the new archaeological insights that the project had brought about when he was the
Samuel Henry Kress lecturer in ancient art for the
Archaeological Institute of America in the same year. He was simultaneously a visiting professor at
Cornell University. In 2008, Jenkins co-curated an exhibition about the
ancient Olympic games for the
2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing. Jenkins led the British Museum's excavations at
Cnidus (Knidos) in Turkey, a site visited by various scholars in the 19th century. Published reports have appeared in
Anatolian Archaeology, most recently in 2006. Jenkins was appointed an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the
2010 Birthday Honours. He was a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of London (elected 5 May 1988) and a corresponding member of the
German Archaeological Institute and
Archaeological Institute of America. He died on 28 November 2020 at the age of 67. ==Elgin Marbles debate==