1903 in archaeology

The year 1903 in archaeology involved some significant events.

Explorations

• Thomas Gann makes first scholarly investigation of Lubaantun.
• Raphael Pumpelly explores at Anau in Turkestan.

Excavations

• Excavations at Assur are continued by a team from the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft led initially by Robert Koldewey (continue until 1913).
• Excavations at Orchomenus (Boeotia) are begun by a team from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities led by Heinrich Bulle and Adolf Furtwängler (continue until 1905).^[1]

Finds

• The remains of "Cheddar Man" are found within Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Britain’s oldest complete human skeleton, dating to approximately 7150 BCE.^[2]
• KV43, the tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose IV in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, is discovered by Howard Carter for Theodore M. Davis.^[3]

Miscellaneous

• Salomon Reinach suggests that cave paintings are expressions of "sympathetic magic".
• Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, with fresco wall paintings (c.50–40 BCE) first installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.^[4]

Publications

• G. Baldwin Brown - The Arts in Early England, vol. 1.
• Teoberto Maler - Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumatsintla Valley: report of explorations for the Museum, 1898-1900, vol. 2, completing a detailed description of Yaxchilan and nearby Maya sites (Peabody Institute).

Births

• March 22 - Mary Chubb, English archaeologist and author working in Egypt and the Near East (died 2003)
• August 7 - Louis Leakey, Kenyan paleoanthropologist (died 1972)^[5]
• Kenneth Murray, English-born archaeologist working in Nigeria (died 1972)

References