Ernst Emil Herzfeld

Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879–1948), a German archaeologist and Iranologist, was one of the towering figures in ancient Near Eastern and Iranian studies during the first half of the 20th century. 

The son of a Prussian major in the medical corps, studied architecture at the School of Technology in Berlin before changing to history, archaeology and Oriental studies at the Universities of Munich and Berlin in 1903. He obtained a doctorate four years later, qualified as a lecturer in historical geography in Berlin (1909) and was appointed full professor of the archaeology of the Orient (1918).

 

Herzfeld was a specialist in Islamic architecture, and the archaeology, history and languages of Iran. He published widely on the subject of ancient Near Eastern and Islamic art and architecture. He joined Friedrich Delitzsch's expedition to Assur as a draughtsman (1903-1906), during which time he first visited the Early Abbasid capital at Samarra. He travelled in Iran (visiting Luristan, Persepolis and Pasargadae) and subsequently wrote a monograph on Persepolis which earned him his doctorate at Berlin under Eduard Meyer and Kekule von Stradonitz in 1907. 

 

Between 1923 and 1929 he travelled extensively in Iran and Afghanistan, acquiring Islamic art works for the Islamische Kunst section of the Staatliches Museeen in Berlin, where his mentor and colleague Sarre worked. During this time he also made extensive surface pottery collections, held in linen bags of finds deposited in the same museum in Berlin; in 1924 he lectured to the newly founded Society for Iranian Heritage; he later became an archaeological adviser to the Iranian government (1927) and may have been instrumental in the ending of the French archaeological monopoly on Iran. (Source: British Museum)