In 1991, Parkinson became acurator of the British Museum as Assistant Keeper ofAncient Egyptian pharaonic culture.[5] His responsibilities included the maintenance and publication of ancientpapyri written inEgyptian hieroglyphs and cursivehieratic, as well as inscribed material such as theRosetta Stone. He was the supervisor of archived material, collections, andepigraphy, and the curator of theNebamun wall-paintings.[5] He remained at the British Museum until the end of 2013.[2][6]
On 1 October 2013, Parkinson was appointed statutory Professor of Egyptology in theFaculty of Oriental Studies,University of Oxford. Spending the first term part-time, he took on the position full-time in January 2014.[7][8] His inaugural lecture about the impact of ancient Egyptian poetry was accompanied by the actress and novelist Barbara Ewing, and was podcast.[9][10] He is a fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford, and has been a director of the Griffith Institute, Oxford.[11]
Parkinson's main area of research is the interpretation ofAncient Egyptian literature.[5] As well as the philological study of manuscripts, he works on material contexts, actors’ perspectives, literary theory and modern receptions in literature, art and film; he also works on the history of Ancient Egyptian mathematics with Christopher D. Hollings.[12] As well as academic monographs and articles, he has written popular books on Egyptology and also a shortLGBT world history, dedicated to his husband.[13][14] In 2016 he gave the Oxford University annualLGBT History Month lecture on this, which was podcast:https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/great-unrecorded-history-lgbt-heritage-and-world-cultures. In 2004 he collaborated in a translation ofBeatrix Potter'sThe Tale of Peter Rabbit into hieroglyphs.[15]
Parkinson is openly gay.[17] He entered into acivil partnership with Timothy Griffiths Reid in 2005, and this was converted intomarriage in 2014.[6]
Parkinson hastype 1 diabetes and has spoken about the intense difficulties of this condition in the competitive academic environment of Oxford, and also those posed by sexuality in his Faculty[2][18]
Parkinson, R B; Diffie, Whitfield; Fischer, M; Simpson, R S (1999),Cracking codes : the Rosetta stone and decipherment, University of California Press,ISBN978-0-520-22248-9,OCLC42354255
Parkinson, R B (2002),Poetry and culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt : a dark side to perfection, Athlone publications in Egyptology and ancient Near Eastern studies, Continuum,ISBN978-0-8264-5637-3,OCLC47623966
Parkinson, R B (2008),The painted tomb-chapel of Nebamun : masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art in the British Museum, British Museum Press,ISBN978-0-7141-1979-3,OCLC183148177
Parkinson, R B (2019), "Imaginary Histories: Ancient Egypt in the Writings of Marguerite Yourcenar and Philippe Derchain",Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur,48:207–40
Parkinson, R B (2019),'The First Gay Kiss?': An Ancient Egyptian Monument in C. Brickell (ed.), Queer Objects, Otago University Press, pp. 2–7
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