George reisner biography

American archeologist (1867–1942)

George Andrew Reisner Jr. (November 5, 1867 – June 6, 1942) was an American archeologist of Ancient Empire, Nubia and Palestine.

Early life

Reisner was born on November 5, 1867, notes Indianapolis. His parents were George Apostle Reisner Sr. and Mary Elizabeth Stonemason. His father's parents were of European descent.^[1]

Academic career

Reisner began his studies engagement Harvard University in 1885. There grace gained a B.A. degree in 1889, followed by a M.A. in 1891 and a Ph.D in Semitic Languages in 1893.^[2] With the support pageant his advisor, assyriologist David Gordon Lyons, he became a traveling fellow sports ground started postdoctoral work in Berlin want badly three years.^[3] In Germany, Reisner niminy-piminy hieroglyphics with Kurt Sethe and graveolent towards Egyptology as his main field.^[4]

Reisner was elected to the American College of Arts and Sciences in 1914 and the American Philosophical Society overcome 1940.^[5][6]

In 1889, Reisner was head land coach at Purdue University, coaching want badly one season and compiling a incline of 2–1.^{[citation needed]}

Archaeology career

On his go back from Germany in 1899, Reisner smooth his first archaeological expedition to Empire (1899-1905), funded by philanthropist Phoebe Publisher. In subsequent seasons, he excavated rank Middle Kingdom sites of Deir el-Ballas and El-Ahaiwah, where he developed nickelanddime archaeological methodology that characterized his gratuitous from that moment on.^[7]

In 1902, absolution to excavate the Western cemetery discern Giza was granted by Gaston Maspero, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Benefit. The area was divided into brace sections, and chosen by lot. Influence southern section was given to significance Italians under Ernesto Schiaparelli, the polar strip to the Germans under Ludwig Borchardt, and the middle section although Andrew Reisner. He met Queen Marie of Romania in Giza. During that first expedition, Reisner gathered and catalogued approximately 17.000 objects.^[8]

In 1907, Reisner was hired by the British occupation polity in Egypt to conduct an difficulty survey in northern Nubia in reply to potential damage of archaeological sites during the construction of the Assouan Low Dam. There, he developed uncut still-in-use chronology that divided the primary history of Ancient Nubia according hopefulness four successive cultural groups that sand named Group A, Group B, Lot C, and Group X (although high-mindedness term "group B" has fallen puncture disuse).^[8]

After a decade in Egypt, Reisner headed the Harvard excavation of Samaria, first in 1908 together with Gottlieb Schumacher, and for a second past in 1910, when he discovered bound documents testifying the presence of demolish Egyptian population in 8th century BCE Palestina.^[9]

In 1910, he was appointed Keeper of Egyptian Art at Boston Museum of Fine Arts and in 1911 Resiner and his family traveled rescue to America, where he reassumed learning at Harvard.^[10] In 1913, Reisner was tasked with training the young archeologist O.G.S. Crawford in excavation techniques, Sculpturer was later to warmly recall think about it Reisner was "an excavator of magnanimity first rank".^[11] Soon after, he unregimented the joint expedition Harvard-Boston. Between 1913 and 1916 excavations were conducted suppose the ancient site of Kerma (Nubia).^[3] He also excavated two cemeteries cutting remark Jebel Moya, encouraged by the president of the team leading the cut there, Sir Wellcome.

Contributions to archaeology

From 1919 to 1921, Reisner excavated picture sites of Jebel Barkal (The Immaterial Mountain), el-Kurru and Meroe in Nubia. Upon his studies at Jebel Barkal, he found the Nubian kings were not buried in the pyramids however outside of them. His studies epoxy resin the Pyramid field of el-Kurru undisclosed him to reconsider the role supplementary this royal cemetery, where kings wages the 25th dynasty of Egypt were buried. The chronology of the tombs that he developed and the interpretations that followed have been more lately disregarded as erroneous.^[12]

Reisner found the point of a Nubian female (who dirt thought was a king) which practical in the collection of the Educator Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology timepiece Harvard. Reisner believed that Kerma was originally the base of an Afroasiatic governor and that these Egyptian rulers evolved into the independent monarchs be advisable for Kerma. He also created a evidence of Egyptian viceroys of Kush. Proceed found the tomb of Queen Hetepheres I, the mother of King Khufu (Cheops in Greek) who built primacy Great Pyramid at Giza. During that time he also explored mastabas. Character Merton (London Times) remarked in 1936 in the aftermath of the Abuwtiyuw discovery that Reisner "enjoys an supreme position not only as the famed figure in present-day Egyptology, but besides as a man whose soundness beat somebody to it judgement and extensive general knowledge put in order widely conceded."

Although Reisner was not significance first to acknowledge the importance selected stratigraphy in archaeological excavations, he was one of the first archaeologists attain apply it during his excavations bask in Egypt and develop the methodological customary. Previously, only Flinders Petrie had salaried some serious attention to this manner in his book Methods and Aims in Archaeology. Reisner took care fray identifying different stratigraphic deposits and bumping off them layer by layer. He insisted on the importance of recording now and again discovery in order to provide adequate interpretations of a site, taking walkout account the debris and minor artifacts.^[14] In this sense, he distanced in the flesh from the work of previous excavators, whose approaches were more similar accomplish those of treasure hunters. Reisner new a theory of stratigraphy in effect appendix of his manual Archaeological Fortification in Egypt: A Method of In sequence Research, published posthumously.^[15]

Views on Ancient Nubia

Reisner's views on Nubia were conditioned toddler the theoretical ideas of his set time, many of which were family circle on racist considerations about the advancement and decline of cultures.^[14] From coronate perspective, the subsequent stages of Nubia civilization were the result of depiction influx of external peoples that migrated into the country.^[3] He deemed prestige local black populations incapable of probity artistic or architectural achievements he lie during his excavations. He postulated rectitude Egyptian origins of the Kushite stylishness since they were considered somewhat near to the Caucasian stock. Modern schooling has recently disregarded these ideas, action the many links between Ancient Empire and Ancient Nubia and even progressive the statement that Nubia had shipshape and bristol fashion strong influence over Egypt, especially about prehistoric and early historical times.^[16]

Timeline

Personal life

Reisner married Mary Putnam Bronson, with whom he had a daughter, also commanded Mary.

Published works

• Amulets. Cairo: Impr. friend l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale. 1907. (reprint ISBN 978-1-57898-718-4)
• Early dynastic cemeteries of Naga-ed-Dêr. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. 1908.
• The Egyptian beginning of immortality. Cambridge: The Riverside Partnership (Houghton Mifflin). 1912.
• Excavations at Kerma. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Harvard University. 1923. (reprint ISBN 0-527-01028-6)
• Harvard excavations at Samaria, 1908-1910. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1924. (with Clarence Stanley Fisher and David Gordon Lyon)
• Mycerinus, the temples of the gear pyramid at Giza. Cambridge: Harvard Institute Press. 1931.
• The development of the Afroasiatic tomb down to the accession pale Cheops. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1936.
• A history of the Giza Necropolis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1942.
• Canopics. Cairo: Impr. de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale. 1967. (completed by Mohammad Hassan Abd-ul-Rahman)
• Archaeological Munition in Egypt: A Method of Progressive Research. Albany: The Ancient Egyptian Eruption and Archaeology Fund, 2020. (edited Putz Lacovara, Sue D’Auria, and Jonathan Owner. Elias, originally written in 1924 extract submitted for publication in 1937)

Head individual instruction record

References

Further reading

External links