Alexander Henry Rhind

Here’s the story of a Caithness man who gravitated to the banks of the Nile. Archaeologist Alexander Henry Rhind was a month shy of his 30th birthday when he died in his sleep in Italy, in 1863, but he packed plenty into his short life. Born in Wick in July 1833 as the son of a banker, he was fascinated by prehistory from a young age, helping to explore various archaeological sites around northern Scotland and becoming the first to systematically excavate an Iron Age broch. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he felt the call of Egypt in his early 20s, partly because he was already suffering from tuberculosis and the climate appealed. There he uncovered an intact burial site now known as the Rhind Tomb. In the words of National Museums Scotland, which to this day displays many of the objects he discovered, he was ‘the first experienced archaeologist to excavate in Egypt’. The Rhind Lectures, named in his honour and hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland since 1874, still take place every year.