R. A. Stewart Macalister

Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister ( born July 8, 1870 in Dublin, † April 26, 1950 in Cambridge ) was an Irish archaeologist.

Macalister was born in 1870 in Dublin, the son of a Scottish family. His father Alexander Macalister was from 1883 professor of anatomy at the University of Cambridge.

He studied at the University of Cambridge. From 1898, he led, together with Frederick J. Bliss some excavations in the Middle East, among other things, at Azekah, by. From 1900 to 1909 he was director of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Under his leadership, there were further excavations at Gezer. Here, among other things, the Gezer calendar was discovered.

In 1909, Macalister Professor of Celtic Archaeology at University College Dublin, where he stayed until his retirement in 1943. He conducted several excavations and field surveys. From 1924 to 1928 he served as president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and was thereafter to 1931 President of the Royal Irish Academy. In this role, he campaigned for the protection of archaeological sites. Many of his suggestions were implemented with the National Monuments Act of 1930. As the National Monuments Advisory Council was established as a result of the law, Macalister became its first chairman. The Northern Irish equivalent of this Committee, he also belonged to. After his retirement he moved to his sister to Cambridge. He died there in 1950.

During his academic career, Macalister was a very active writer and was also active interdisciplinary. In addition to several hundred Papern and a variety of books about Irish archeology, European archeology and archeology of the Middle East published Macalister also about Irish epigraphy and the history and languages ​​of the Middle East.