William Kennett Loftus (13 November 1820, inLinton, Kent – 27 November 1858, at sea) was a British geologist, naturalist, explorer and archaeological excavator. He discovered the ancientSumerian city ofUruk in 1849.[1]
Loftus was brought up inRye,East Sussex, and went to school atNewcastle Royal Grammar School. In Cambridge, where from 1840 he studied geology, he was a student atCaius College.[2] In 1845 he married Charlotte Thulbourne. From 1849 he served as geologist and naturalist with the British government'sTurco-Persian Boundary Commission, underColonel Fenwick Williams (Royal Artillery). The work of the mission gave Loftus and his friendHenry Adrian Churchill the chance to visit ancient sites and, in 1850, to excavate for a month at Uruk (Warka) andLarsa (Senkereh), discovering theZiggurat of Ur. Loftus and Churchill also visitedSusa in 1850, but they only made plans of the site, andPercy Sykes described the pair's reception at Susa as "unfriendly".[3]
Briefly, in February to April 1851, Loftus was released from the work of the commission to excavate at Susa on behalf of theBritish Museum, but was in June replaced byHormuzd Rassam, together with whom Loftus subsequently explored the sites and collaborated on a report on the work at Susa. He is credited with the discovery of theApadana, later excavated by the French amateur archaeologistMarcel-Auguste Dieulafoy.
Engaged in 1853 by the newly founded Assyrian Excavation Fund to conduct excavations in Warka, Loftus worked at the site from January to April 1854, uncovering the famous coloured clay cone wall and some tablets written incuneiform script. In October of the same year he transferred toNineveh, and also worked atNimrud, where in February 1855 he found the so-called "Burnt Palace" of the Assyrian kingAssurnasirpal II and a hoard of exquisite ivories. In 1854 he briefly excavated atTell Sifr.
In September 1856 Loftus was engaged as assistant geologist to theGeological Survey of India, but in India he suffered declining health and died at sea on the voyage back to Britain, aged 38.
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