James Henry Breasted

James Henry Breasted
James Breasted in Chicago, 1928.
Born	(1865-08-27)August 27, 1865 Rockford, Illinois
Died	December 2, 1935(1935-12-02) (aged 70) New York City
Nationality	American
Alma mater	North Central College Yale University University of Berlin
Known for	Popularizing the term "Fertile Crescent" Founder of the Oriental Institute
Scientific career
Fields	Archaeology Egyptology
Institutions	University of Chicago
Thesis	De hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide IV conceptis (1894)
Doctoral advisor	Adolf Erman
Doctoral students	Robert John Braidwood

James Henry Breasted (/ˈbrɛstɪd/; August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894 – the first American to obtain a doctorate in Egyptology – he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the university, where he continued to concentrate on Egypt. In 1905 Breasted was promoted to full professor, and held the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States.

Breasted was a committed field researcher in Egypt and the Levant and had a productive interest in recording and interpreting ancient writings, especially from sources and structures that he feared may be lost forever. In 1919 he founded the Oriental Institute (later known as, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures) at the University of Chicago, a center for interdisciplinary study of ancient civilizations. That same year, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.^[1]