Henri Frankfort (February 24, 1897 - July 16, 1954) was a Dutch Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalist.

Biography

Born in Amsterdam, Frankfort studied history at the University of Amsterdam and then moved to London, where in 1924, he took an MA under Sir Flinders Petrie at the University College. In 1927 he gained a Ph.D. from the University of Leiden. He married Henriette Groenwegen and later Enriqueta Harris.

Between 1925 and 1929 Frankfort was director of the excavations of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) of London at El-Amarna, Abydos and Armant. In 1929 he was invited by Henry Breasted to become Field Director of the Oriental Institute (OI) of Chicago expedition to Iraq. In 1949 he became director of the Warburg Institute in London. Along with EA Wallis Budge, he was revolutionary for his time for suggesting that Egyptian civilization, culturally, religiously, and ethnically arose from an African, instead of an Asian base. He wrote 15 books and monographs and about 73 articles for journals about ancient Egypt, archaeology and cultural anthropology, especially on the religious systems of the Ancient Near East.

He died in London.

Bibliography

• The Mural Painting of el-Amarna (1929)
• The Cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos (together with A. de Buck and B. Gunn, 1933)
• The City of Akhenaten volume II (together with J. D. S. Pendlebury, 1933)
• The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946) (Later called 'Before Philosophy').
• Ancient Egyptian Religion: an Interpretation (1948)
• Kingship and the Gods (1948)
• The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (1954)

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