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Reginald Campbell Thompson was an archaeologist, Assyriologist, cuneiformist and fiction writer, along with being a member of the Royal Asiatic Society.

He was educated at St. Paul’s School in 1894, before becoming a student of Caius College, Cambridge, 1895-1899. After graduating from the college he became an assistant in the Egyptian and Assyrian Department, British Museum, a position he held from 1899 to 1905, during which he published his first book, ‘The Reports of Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon’ (1900) and undertook several trips to Algeria (1901), Egypt (1902), Tripoli (1903) and Iraq (1904-1905). During his trip in Iraq he conducted an excavation at Nineveh and found the remains of the temple of Nabu.

After resigning from the British Museum in December 1905 Thompson entered the service of the Sudanese government, where he conducted a survey until summer 1906, after which he accepted the post of Assistant Professor of Semitic Language at the University of Chicago, which he held from 1907 to 1909. In the following years Thompson continued with his excavations in the Middle East, including in Carchemish (1911), at a Coptic site in Wadi Sargah (1913-1914) and – interrupted by his service for the Mesopotamian Campaign during WWI – in Abu Shahrain (1918). He returned to Nineveh for an excavation from 1927 to 1932.

Alongside his lifelong interest in archaeology and Assyrian studies, Thompson also had a passion for literature, which resulted in three fictional works, including ‘A Song of Araby’ (1921) and ‘A Mirage of Sheba’ (1923) – both published under the pseudonym of John Guisborough – and ‘A Digger’s Fancy: A Melodrama’ (1938).

Reading Museum is a museum, located in the Town Hall, of the history of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire, and the surrounding area. Reading Town Hall was built in several phases between 1786 and 1897, although the principal façade was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1875. In 1879, the foundation stone was laid for a new wing containing a library and museum, and the museum duly opened in 1883. The museum displayed a large eclectic collection from the late Horatio Bland. Three art galleries were added in further extension in 1897In 1975, the civic offices moved out of the Town Hall to Reading Civic Centre. They were followed in 1985 by the Reading Central Library which left only the museum and the concert hall in use. After some debate, plans to demolish the Town Hall and replace it with a new cultural centre were abandoned, and in 1986 refurbishment of the building started. The museum was closed for renewal in 1989, reopening in stages from 1993 (the Reading: People & Place gallery) to 2000.