2011年8月8日 星期一

Ancient Times — A History of the Early World

1931 年5月3日 胡適回陳寅恪推介其弟子翻譯史書中
提到的Shotwell 推薦的書:
Ancient Times — A History of the Early World (Second Revised & Largely Rewritten ed.). Boston: The Athenæum Press. 1935.

初以為是高中用書 讀後 (1927年已有放大本 名著) 覺得不錯


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
詹姆斯·亨利·布雷斯特德(英語:James Henry Breasted,1865年8月27日-1935年12月2日),出生在美國伊利諾州的羅克福德,是美國考古學家和史學家。他曾入讀芝加哥神學院(Chicago Theological Seminary)、耶魯大學和柏林大學,是第一個獲得埃及學博士學位的美國公民。

James Henry Breasted

James Breasted in Chicago, 1928.
Born August 27, 1865
Rockford, Illinois
Died December 2, 1935 (aged 70)
New York City
Nationality United States
Fields archaeology
Egyptology
Institutions University of Chicago
Alma mater University of Berlin
Known for Fertile Crescent

James Henry Breasted (August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the University of Chicago, where he continued to concentrate on Egypt. In 1919 he became the founder of the Oriental Institute at the University, designed to be a lab for research into the rise of civilization in the Near East. In 1905 Breasted was promoted to professor in the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Early life and education

Breasted's English and Dutch ancestors came to the American continent in the 17th century with the surname Van Breestede.[1] His father was a small hardware business owner in the 8,000-strong town of Rockford, Illinois,[1] where just months after the assassination of Lincoln and end of the Civil War, Breasted was born.

He was educated at North Central College (then North-Western College) (B.A. 1888), the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Yale University (M.A. 1892), where he studied under the Hebrew scholar William Rainey Harper. Harper encouraged Breasted to go to the University of Berlin, where he earned his PhD (1894) under the instruction of Adolf Erman. He was the first American citizen to obtain a PhD in Egyptology.

[edit] Marriage and family

That same year he married Frances Hart, who was in Germany learning the language and studying music together with her sisters. The couple honeymooned in Egypt. It turned into a working vacation as Breasted had been recruited to build a collection of Egyptian antiquities for the University of Chicago.[2] Hart and her sisters were in Germany at the same time as Breasted, learning German and studying music.[1]

Hart died four decades later in 1934. The widower Breasted would marry one of her sisters.[1]

[edit] Academic career

Breasted was in the forefront of the generation of archaeologist-historians who broadened the idea of Western Civilization to include the entire Near East in Europe's cultural roots. Breasted coined the term "Fertile Crescent" to describe the archaeologically important area including parts of present-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.

He became an instructor at the University of Chicago in 1894 soon after earning his doctorate. Five years later, UC agreed to let him accept the Prussian Academy's invitation to work on their Egyptian dictionary project. From 1899 to 1908, he did field work in Egypt, which established his reputation. He began to publish numerous articles and monographs, as well as his History of Egypt from the Earliest Times Down to the Persian Conquest in 1905. At that time he was promoted to Professor of Egyptology and Oriental History for Chicago (the first such chair in the United States).

In 1901, Breasted was appointed Director of the Haskell Oriental Museum (forerunner of the Oriental Institute), which had opened at the University of Chicago in 1896. Though the Haskell Oriental Museum contained works of art from both the Near East and the Far East, Breasted's principal interest was in Egypt. He began to work on a compilation of all the extant hieroglyphic inscriptions, which was published in 1906 as Ancient Records of Egypt. It continues to be an important collection of translated texts; as Peter A. Piccione wrote in the preface to its 2001 reprint, it "still contains certain texts and inscriptions that have not been retranslated since that time."

Through the years, as Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum, he dreamed of establishing a research institute, “a laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization” that would trace Western civilization to its roots in the ancient Middle East.[3] As World War I wound down, he sensed an opportunity. He wrote to John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the major donor to the University, and proposed founding what would become the Oriental Institute. He planned a research trip through the Middle East, which he suggested was ready to receive scholars. Rockefeller responded by pledging $50,000 over five years for the Oriental Institute. He separately assured the University of Chicago President Judson to pledge another $50,000 to the cause. The University of Chicago contributed additional support and, in May 1919, the Oriental Institute was founded.

Breasted had two key objectives for the field trip: to purchase antiquities for the Oriental Institute and to select sites for future excavation. The group ultimately consisted of Breasted and four of his students (or former students): Ludlow Bull, William Edgerton (both graduate students in Egyptology); Daniel Luckenbill (professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago), and William Shelton (a former student who was a professor of Semitic languages at Emory University).

The general itinerary of the expedition was:

August 1919: from Chicago to England, by way of New York and France September 1919: England October 1919: from England to Cairo, by way of Paris, Venice, and Alexandria November 1919: Egypt December 1919: Egypt January 1920: Egypt February 1920: from Egypt to Bombay March 1920: Bombay to Basra, Mesopotamia April 1920: Mesopotamia May 1920: from Mesopotamia to Arab State (today Syria) and Beirut June 1920: from Damascus to Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo, and London July 1920: to Chicago

As Breasted scouted future archaeological sites and visited antiquities dealers, he came to know many of the British political figures and scholars working in Egypt. These included Gertrude Bell, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, Lord Allenby, and the Arab leader Faisal, who would become king of Iraq. Due to Breasted's extensive travels and knowledge of the political situation throughout the Middle East, Lord Allenby, at that time the High Commissioner for Egypt, requested that he inform the British Prime Minister and Earl Curzon about the hostility of the western Arabs to the occupying British forces before returning to America.

Breasted's acquisitions were significant for the growth and scope of the collections of the Oriental Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his most well-known purchases was the mummy of Meresamun, a singer in the interior of the Temple of Amun at Karnak. On this trip, Breasted showed far greater confidence in his selections, as well as a talent for negotiating with dealers.[citation needed] Although he did not considered himself a connoisseur of Egyptian art, he developed a keen eye for objects of beauty that were also highly instructive.[citation needed]

The first excavation of the Oriental Institute was in Egypt at Medinet Habu, one of the sites which he had recommended. Breasted returned to Egypt frequently; in 1922 and 1923 he aided Howard Carter in deciphering the seals from the recently discovered Tomb of Tutankhamun. [5] On April 25, 1923, Breasted became the first archaeologist to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. The honor helped to legitimize the struggling profession of archaeology in American academic circles.

Breasted died on December 2, 1935 of a streptococcus infection after returning from his last expedition.[4][5]

"If one were asked to name a scholar who, above all others, stimulated the development of ancient historical studies in the United States during the earlier part of the twentieth century, that honor would have to fall to the colossal figure of James Henry Breasted."

Dictionary of Literary Biography by William J. Murnane

While at Chicago, Breasted had a home built near the university. Its carriage house was designed to look like a mastaba. The house is now used as the fraternity house of Phi Gamma Delta.

Breasted is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Rockford, Illinois. His grave site is marked with a large Aswan granite cube, marked simply with his name and “historian and archaeologist.”

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Further reading

  • Breasted, Charles (1977) [1943]. Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226071863 (paperback).
  • Scott, John A. (1927). "Professor Breasted as a Historian of Greece". The Classical Journal 22 (5): 383–384. ISSN 00098353.
  • The 1905–1907 Breasted Expeditions to Egypt and the Sudan: A Photographic Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1975.
  • James, T.G.H. (1992). Howard Carter, the Path to Tutankhamun.. London: Kegan Paul International.
  • Breasted, Charles (2010). Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East 1919-1920 | The Oriental Institute Museum Publications; 30). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Bull, Ludlow; Speiser, Ephraim A.; Olmstead, Albert Ten Eyck (June 1936). "James Henry Breasted 1865-1935". Journal of the American Oriental Society 56 (2): 113–120.
  2. ^ Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002 Document # H1000011705
  3. ^ C. Breasted, Pioneer to the Past, p. 238
  4. ^ "Dr. Breasted Dies". The New York Times. December 3, 1935. Retrieved 2009-02-24. "Authority on Egypt Victim at 70 Of Infection Incurred on Way Home From Expedition. Assisted at Tut-ankh-Amen Tomb. Discovered the Site of Armageddon. The following signed statement regarding Dr. Breasted's death was issued by his doctors: "Dr. James Henry Breasted died this morning at the Harkness ..."
  5. ^ "Dr. Breasted, Historian, Dies". United Press International. 1935. Retrieved 2009-02-24.

[edit] External links


沒有留言:

張貼留言