Erich Friedrich Schmidt

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

Life

Erich Schmidt was born in Baden-Baden in 1897. His father, a university professor, died when Erich was ten years old. After finishing school, Erich Schmidt attended a cadet institute in Karlsruhe and Berlin. In the First World War he fought on the Eastern Front, suffered a serious wound there and was taken prisoner by the Russians. After four years he managed to escape from a Siberian labor camp.

Back in Germany, he enrolled at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin at the age of 24 and studied political science. In December 1923 he emigrated to the USA and began studying anthropology and archeology at Columbia University . He financed his studies with a job at the American Museum of Natural History . After graduating, he worked at the Oriental Institute of Chicago , of which he became co-director.

Schmidt was best known for his work in the excavations of Persepolis (1934 to 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)
• Anatolia Through the Ages: Discoveries at the Alishar Mound, 1927-1929 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1931).
• Excavations at Tepe Hissar, Damghan (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937).
• 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);

literature

• Ayşe Gürsan: Exploring Iran: the photography of Erich F. Schmidt, 1930-1940. University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, 2007.