Reisner, George Andrew

(1867–1942)

   American excavator. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 5 November 1867. A Harvard graduate, he then studied Egyptology at Berlin. He became director of archaeological work in Egypt, the Hearst Expedition, for the University of California, financed by the Hearst family, from 1899–1905 and then directed the Nubian Archaeological Survey for the Egyptian Antiquities Service from 1907–1909. He was appointed curator of the Egyptian Department of the Boston Museum of Fine Artsin 1910, and until his death he conducted excavations at various sites in Egypt, including Zawiyet el-Aryan; several sites in Nubia; and especially Giza, where he discovered the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, and Nag el-Deir, where he found the Reisner Papyri. Reisner kept meticulous and detailed notes of his work, but this inevitably delayed publication, so many of his excavations were published posthumously by his assistant, Dows Dunham. He died in Giza, Egypt, on 6 June 1942.

   See also Carter, Howard; Mariette, Auguste Ferdinand; Montet, Pierre Marie; Naville, Edouard; Petrie, William Matthew Flinders; Winlock, Herbert Eustis.

Historical Dictionary Of Ancient Egypt by Morris L. Bierbrier