Artefacts of Excavation

British artist; he was born at Great Malvern, 25 Aug. 1864, son of Marcus Sefton B. and Fanny Franklyn; a volunteer member of the staff of the Archaeological Survey under Newberry at Beni Hasan, 1890-1 and Beni Hasan and El-Bersha, 1891-2; he made coloured drawings of the wall-paintings, but his work was brought to an end by a dispute with Newberry over the discovery of the alabaster quarries at Hatnub (see further below); many of Blackden’s drawings were reproduced in colour in Beni Hasan I, III and IV and El Bersheh I; with G. Willoughby Fraser he published the hieratic graffiti at Hatnub; he later became a mystic and a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, for which body he published The Ritual of the Mystery of the Judgement of the Soul, 1915, based on the Papyrus of Ani; he died in Blackfield, Hampshire, 21 Sept. 1934.