Cyrus H. Gordon

Cyrus Herzl Gordon ( born June 29, 1908 in Philadelphia, † March 30, 2001 in Brookline, Massachusetts) was an American semitist and orientalist. During the Second World War, he was also active in the field of cryptanalysis. His academic degrees (BA, MA and Ph. D. ), he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He has become particularly well known for his work on Ugaritic.

As a supporter of the idea of pre-Columbian and diffusionism, transatlantic contacts between 'Old ' and ' New World ' Gordon also took the view that already Protosemiten, Phoenicians and other Afro- European peoples arrived by sea in ancient times both North and South America and there left traces. This - sharp by followers of the dominant in anthropology and the Anthropology of the Americas, ' isolationist ' position criticized - based opinion among others on his work on highly controversial finds, such as the discovered in Tennessee ' by Bat Creek Stone ', the inscription of Parahyba in Brazil, and the ' Los Lunas Decalogue Stone '.