Erich Schmidt (archaeologist)

Erich Friedrich Schmidt ( * September 13, 1897 in Baden -Baden, † October 3, 1964 in Santa Barbara ( California)) was an American Near Eastern archaeologist of German origin, who became famous primarily for his excavation work at Persepolis.

Life

Erich Schmidt was born in 1897 in Baden -Baden. His father, a university professor, died when Eric was ten years old. After his education, Erich Schmidt attended a military academy in Karlsruhe and Berlin. In World War I he fought on the Eastern Front, suffered a serious injury and there fell into Russian captivity. After four years, he managed to escape from a Siberian labor camp.

Back in Germany, he enrolled at the age of 24 years at the Friedrich -Wilhelms -Universität zu Berlin and studied political science. In December 1923, he emigrated to the U.S. and began at Columbia University studying anthropology and archeology. He pursued his education funded by a job at the American Museum of Natural History. After his studies he worked at the Oriental Institute of Chicago, co-director, he was.

Schmidt was known especially for his participation in the excavations of Persepolis ( 1934-1939 ). Schmidt was a pioneer of aerial archeology.

Publications

• Time - Relations of Prehistoric Pottery Types in Southern Arizona, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 30, no 5 (1928 )
• Flights Over Ancient Cities of Iran (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1940).
• Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs, Inscriptions ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
• Persepolis II: Contents of the Treasury and Other Discoveries ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957).
• Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
• The Treasury of Persepolis and Other Discoveries in the Homeland of the Achaemenians, OIC 21 ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939);