Breasted, James Henry
| James Henry Breasted |
James Breasted in Chicago, 1928.
|
| Born |
August 27, 1865
Rockford, Illinois |
| Died |
December 2, 1935(1935-12-02) (aged 70)
New York City |
| Nationality |
United States |
| Fields |
archaeology
Egyptology |
| Institutions |
University of Chicago |
| Alma mater |
University of Berlin |
| Known for |
Fertile Crescent |
James Henry Breasted (August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist and historian.
[edit] Early life and education
Breasted's English and Dutch ancestors came to the American continent in the 17th century with the surname Van Breestede.[1] His father was a small hardware business owner in the 8,000-strong town of Rockford, Illinois,[1] where just months after the assassination of Lincoln and end of the Civil War, Breasted was born.
He was educated at North Central College (then North-Western College) (B.A. 1888), the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Yale University (M.A. 1892), where he studied under the Hebrew scholar William Rainey Harper. Harper encouraged Breasted to go to the University of Berlin, where he earned his (PhD 1894) under the instruction of Adolf Erman. He was the first American citizen to obtain a PhD in Egyptology. That same year he married Frances Hart and the couple honeymooned in Egypt which turned into a working vacation because he had been recruited to build a collection of Egyptian antiquities for the University of Chicago.[2] Hart was in Germany at the same time as Breasted, learning German and studying music along with her sisters; after her death several decades later in 1934, Breasted would marry one of her sisters.[1]
[edit] Academic career
Breasted was in the forefront of the generation of archeologist-historians who broadened the idea of Western Civilization to include the entire Near East in Europe's cultural roots. Breasted coined the term "Fertile Crescent" to describe the archaeologically important area from Israel to southern Iraq.
He became an instructor at the University of Chicago in 1894 soon after earning his doctorate. Five years later UC agreed to let him accept the Prussian Academy's invitation to work on their Egyptian dictionary project. Therefore, from 1899 to 1908 he devoted himself to field work which established his reputation. He began to publish numerous articles and monographs, as well as his History of Egypt from the Earliest Times Down to the Persian Conquest in 1905. At that time he was promoted to Professor of Egyptology and Oriental History for U of C (the first such chair in the United States).
In 1901, he was appointed Director of the Haskell Oriental Museum, forerunner of the Oriental Institute, which had opened at the University of Chicago in 1896. Though the Haskell Oriental Museum contained works of art from both the Near East and the Far East, Breasted's principal interest was in Egypt; he began to work on a compilation of all the extant hieroglyphic inscriptions, which was published in 1906 as Ancient Records of Egypt, which remains an important collection of translated texts; as Peter A. Piccione wrote in the preface to its 2001 reprint, it "still contains certain texts and inscriptions that have not been retranslated since that time."
Through the years, as he built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum, he dreamed of establishing a research institute, “a laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization” that would trace Western civilization to its roots in the ancient Middle East (C. Breasted, Pioneer to the Past, p. 238). As World War I wound down, he sensed an opportunity based on the new political order, and also on his own influence. He wrote to John D. Rockefeller Jr. and proposed the foundation of what would become the Oriental Institute. Fundamental to the implementation of his plan was a research trip through the Middle East, which Breasted had optimistically, or perhaps naively, suggested was ready to receive scholars. Breasted received a reply from Rockefeller pledging $50,000 over five years for the Oriental Institute. Unbeknownst to Breasted, Rockefeller assured University of Chicago President Judson that he would pledge another $50,000 to the cause. The University of Chicago contributed additional support and in May 1919 the Oriental Institute was founded. Breasted had two key objectives for the trip: to purchase antiquities for the museum of the new Oriental Institute and to select sites for future excavation. The group ultimately consisted of Breasted and four of his students (or former students): Ludlow Bull, William Edgerton (both graduate students in Egyptology), Daniel Luckenbill (professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago), and William Shelton (former student who was a professor of Semitic languages at Emory University). The general itinerary of the expedition was:
August 1919: from Chicago to England, by way of New York and France September 1919: England October 1919: from England to Cairo, by way of Paris, Venice, and Alexandria November 1919: Egypt December 1919: Egypt January 1920: Egypt February 1920: from Egypt to Bombay March 1920: Bombay to Basra, Mesopotamia April 1920: Mesopotamia May 1920: from Mesopotamia to Arab State (today Syria) and Beirut June 1920: from Damascus to Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo, and London July 1920: to Chicago
Not only did Breasted spend his time scouting out future archaeological sites and visiting antiquities dealers, but he also came to know many of the political figures of the time. The most well known of his acquaintances were Gertrude Bell, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, Lord Allenby, and the Arab leader Faisal, who would become king of Iraq. Due to his extensive travels and knowledge of the political situation throughout the Middle East, Lord Allenby, at that time, the High Commissioner for Egypt, requested that Breasted speak to the British Prime Minister and Earl Curzon about the hostility of the western Arabs to the occupying British forces before returning to America.
The acquisitions that Breasted made during the expedition were significant for the growth and scope of the collections of the Oriental Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his most well-known purchases was the mummy of Meresamun, a Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun at Karnak. Comparing the difference in quality of the purchases from this trip to those from his first visit to Egypt in 1894 is astounding. Breasted showed far greater confidence in his selections as well as a talent for negotiating with dealers. Although he never considered himself a connoisseur of Egyptian art, he developed a keen eye for objects of beauty that were also highly instructive.
Breasted’s recommendations for excavations based on all he had seen during the 1919-1920 expedition were grand, but overall they were far more fruitful than his suggestions for acquisitions. It is not surprising, considering that he was an Egyptologist, that the first excavation of the Oriental Institute was in Egypt at Medinet Habu.
Breasted returned to Egypt frequently, and in 1922 and 1923 he aided Howard Carter in deciphering the seals from the recently discovered Tomb of Tutankhamun. [5] On April 25, 1923, Breasted became the first “archaeologist” to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, a personal honor that helped significantly to legitimize the struggling profession of archaeology in American academic circles.
He died on December 2, 1935 of a streptococcus infection after returning from his last expedition.[3][4]
"If one were asked to name a scholar who, above all others, stimulated the development of ancient historical studies in the United States during the earlier part of the twentieth century, that honor would have to fall to the colossal figure of James Henry Breasted."
— Dictionary of Literary Biography by William J. Murnane
He is buried in Greenwood cemetery, Rockford, Illinois. His grave site is marked with a large Aswan granite cube, marked simply with his name and “historian and archaeologist.” He had a personal residence built near the University of Chicago campus, whose carriage house was designed to look like a mastaba. The house now stands as the fraternity house for Phi Gamma Delta.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Further reading
- Breasted, Charles (1977) [1943]. Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226071863 (paperback).
- Scott, John A. (1927). "Professor Breasted as a Historian of Greece". The Classical Journal 22 (5): 383–384. ISSN 00098353.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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| Persondata |
| Name |
Breasted, James Henry |
| Alternative names |
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| Short description |
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| Date of birth |
August 27, 1865 |
| Place of birth |
Rockford, Illinois |
| Date of death |
December 2, 1935 |
| Place of death |
New York City |
