history and archaeology, appointing them to the Antiquities Service as regional inspectors. Systematic mapping and recording of sites and finds was also implemented; this work later aided in the UNESCO campaign to salvage monuments from the rising Lake Nasser. The work was interrupted by World War II during which he served as Chief Transport Officer in the Sudan from 1940–4. As soon as he returned to his post, the first official excavations carried out by the Antiquities Service began on a prehistoric site near the Khartoum civil hospital, and later at Shaheinab in 1949, revealing information about Sudanese prehistory for the first time. The excavations at Khartoum revealed the existence of a pottery-producing culture that utilised stone tools, described as 'Mesolithic' who lived in a period when the climate was much wetter. During the post-war years he edited the Sudan Notes and Records and became president of the Philosophical Society of the Sudan in 1947; he became a Life Member in 1949. Over the course of his career, Arkell was able to conduct several surveys, documenting among other things the existence of massive iron works in Meroe and the extensive predynastic culture of Egypt, notably the Badarians. He retired as Commissioner in 1949 and returned to England. Upon his retirement from the Sudan he accepted the post of lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at University College London and became Honorary Curator of the Petrie Collection. Here he undertook the challenging task of unpacking the 800 crates into which the collection had been hurriedly packed in the early days of the war. Over the next 14 years he unpacked and stored the collection, cataloging at least a third of it himself. During this time he gained a deeper understanding for the history of Egypt, particularly the Predynastic period and in collaboration with his student P. J. Ucko published Review of Predynastic Development in the Nile Valley in Current Anthropology in 1965. He was promoted to Reader in Egyptian Archaeology in 1953 and retired in 1963. He had earlier published A History of the Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1821 in 1951. He had become an Honorary Member of the German Archaeological Institute in 1953. In 1955 he presented a history of the Darfur Province for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Letters from the University of Oxford. He was a Committee member of the Egypt Exploration Society for many