James Henry Breasted Biography

James Henry Breasted

(Rockford, 1865-New York, 1935) American Egyptologist, archaeologist and historian.Specialized in the archeology of Ancient Egypt, he contributed notably to a better knowledge of Egyptian civilization.

He studied at Yale University and later completed his training at the University of Berlin, a center with great archaeological prestige.In 1894 he was appointed professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, where he remained until his retirement.In 1900 he returned to Germany to collaborate in the writing of the first dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and between 1905 and 1907 he carried out expeditions to copy inscriptions of monuments until then unpublished.The results of this work were published in Ancient Records of Egypt (1907), an extensive work in five volumes.

In 1903 he wrote The Battle of Kadesh , about the mythical campaign of Pharaoh Ramses II against the Hittites.In 1915 he was appointed Head of the Department of Oriental Languages and in 1919 created the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, of which he was its first director.This institution became the main center for the investigation of the ancient civilizations of Greece and the Middle East: with the financial help of Rockefeller Jr., excavations were organized in emblematic centers (Meggido, Persepolis) that resulted in important finds.

Among his most significant works are a History of Egypt (1905), The Monuments of Sudanese Nubia (1908), the result of a expedition to the Sudan, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1912), Ancient Times (1916), on the pre-Hellenic period, The conquest of La civilización (1926), an informative work that was very successful, and The Surgical Papyrus by Edwin Smith (1930), considered by him the first scientific treatise in history.

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