Henri Frankfort

1897-1954

    Henri Frankfort was born on February 24, 1897 in Amsterdam. He became an American citizen in 1944. He was affiliated with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago at Tell Asmar and Khorsabad where he taught from 1932 until 1949 and also with the Warburg Institute, of the University of London where he was took over as the Director in 1949. He has been Director of Expeditions to Egypt and Iraq expeditions.

    Frankfort has published many books dealing with his knowledge in anthropology of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean. These books include Ancient Egyptian Religion, The Birth of Civilization, and The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. Kingship and the Gods which details the great kings of each dynasty and their achievements. It also relates the societal aspects of the times.

    In 1942 Frankfort wrote a paper and delivered it to the Oriental Institute. In 1946, he and his wife and three other archaeologists published The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. These works dealt with his concept of “mytho-poetic thinking”.

    When the Egyptian texts were first beginning to be deciphered, what was found was discouraging because they seemed only to be concerned with myths, spells, and stories without any real structure. To Egyptologists in the 1800's, this proved that ancients Egyptians could not have had “logical abstract thinking” because “they are after all, Africans.” In his work, Frankfort argued that “Speculation-as the etymology of the world shows-is an intuitive, an almost visionary, mode of apprehension.” In essence, because they were able to express themselves, even through stories, they were able to understand and produce rational thought.

    Frankfort died suddenly in 1954. His wife set up a Research Fellowship with the Warburg Institute. It is to be held in any of the three areas in which Frankfort made his contributions: the intellectual and cultural history of the ancient Near East, the relations between the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Aegean, and their influences on later civilizations.

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Written by: Elissa Becker, 2001.