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George Reisner: An Impression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

J. W. Crowfoot
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Extract

It is more than thirty years since I first met George Reisner. He was then in the prime of life, a short sturdily-built man with a mass of straight black hair, I a closely clipped moustache and a determined chin. He was wearing spectacles with very powerful lenses and, as usual, had a pipe in his mouth. His fingers were short and stubby and it was rather terrifying to see him manipulating some delicate antiquity. There was nothing Germanic about him except his name—he was born in Indianapolis of a family which had migrated from Europe, I believe, in the Napoleonic era. Nor was there anything obviously academic; he looked and talked like a forceful 100% American of the breed of Theodore Roosevelt, strong, open and friendly. He used to say, probably with truth, that he might have made a fortune in business if he had not chosen a different career.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 17 , Issue 67 , September 1943 , pp. 122 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1943

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References

1 ‘Workmen must distinguish between fallen stones and walls ; stones struck with the pick in the débris are not to be pulled through the débris, but cleared ; no floor is to be broken except by order, even when it is only a thin layer of hardened earth ; every fresh stratum is to be worked by itself, but only on order ; the objects from each sort of débris are to be kept separate ; the workmen must have enough knowledge to recognize important objects ; such objects (whole pots, inscriptions, statuettes, etc.) must be left in position and reported at once ; no cave or other room is to be entered except by a special order ; no pot, box, or other receptacle is to be emptied except by order’.

2 I visited the camp a few months later and inquired after Said : ‘May you live’ was the sad reply ‘but Said is dead’. He was widely mourned; in the same autumn, happening to be in Samaria, I mentioned his death to one of the people there as a sad piece of news, ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I wrote a letter of condolence to the family long ago and have received their answer’.

3 The History of the Giza Necropolis and The Giza Mastabas on which Reisner has been working for years have not yet appeared.