John Lewis Romer (born 30 September 1941, in Surrey, England) is a British Egyptologist, historian and archaeologist. He has created and appeared in many TV archaeology series, including Romer's Egypt, Ancient Lives, Testament, The Seven Wonders of the World, Byzantium: The Lost Empire and Great Excavations: The Story of Archaeology.
Romer was educated at Ottershaw School, a state boarding school near Woking, Surrey, and the Royal College of Art in London, coming to archaeology through his epigraphic studies of painting and drawing. He went on to work as an artist in Persepolis and Cairo, drawing and studying ancient inscriptions.
Romer began his archaeological work in 1966, when he participated in the University of Chicago's Epigraphic Survey at the temples and tombs of the ancient Egyptian site of Thebes (modern-day Luxor). From 1977 to 1979 he originated and organised a major expedition to the Valley of the Kings which carried out the first excavation there since the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. In 1979 he headed the Brooklyn Museum's expedition to excavate the tomb of Ramesses XI.
In 1979 Romer and his wife (Elizabeth Romer, also an archaeologist and designer) founded The Theban Foundation, in Berkeley, California, a body dedicated to the conservation and documentation of the Royal Tombs of Thebes. One result of this was the creation of the Theban Mapping Project.
Romer's books (some co-written with his wife) include Valley of the Kings, Ancient Lives, Testament and The Seven Wonders of the World, many of which were televised. His most recent works, A History of Ancient Egypt: From the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid, and A History of Ancient Egypt Volume 2: From the Great Pyramid to the Fall of the Middle Kingdom were published in 2012 and 2017.
Romer lives in Tuscany, Italy.
