Albright, William Foxwell

American philologist, archaeologist and Semitic scholar; born in Coquimbo, Chile, 24 May 1891, son of Revd Wilbur Finley A., a Methodist minister and missionary in S. America, and Zephine Viola Foxwell his wife; despite some physical disabilities he became a scholar of the highest distinction and the `Doyen' of Palestinian Archaeology in his later years; AB Upper Iowa University, 1912; Principal of High School Menno, S. Dakota; PhD Oriental Seminary Johns Hopkins University, 1916, his dissertation on The Assyrian Deluge Epic remaining unpublished; he went to Jerusalem where he was Thayer Fellow at the American School of Oriental Research, 1919; Acting Director, 1920; Director, 1921-9; Professor of Semitic languages J. H. Univ. 1929-58; Professor Emeritus of Semitic languages J. H. Univ., 1958-71; editor of BASOR for 38 years, 1931-68; Vice-President and Trustee for over 30 years. Among the 30 hon. degrees he held were hon. Litt. D. Yale, 1950-1, and Harvard, 1961-2. He married Ruth Norton, 1921, a fellow student at J. H. Univ., who took a doctorate in Sanskrit. The part played by Albright in the establishment of systematic archaeological work in Palestine was fundamental, and he conducted what are now historic excavations at Tell el-Ful, north of Jerusalem, Shiloh, Bethel, and especially Tell Beit Mirsim, 1926-32, where he discovered in stratigraphical context a then rare but important pottery type, and whose other occupational phases became standard site terminology for nearly 30 years; his interests were very wide and he accompanied the Arabian expedition of Wendell Phillips as Chief Archaeologist, 1948-50; Jordan Lecturer Univ. of London,1965; he visited Israel as a state guest and was presented with a large Festschnft, 1969; his first article related to the Nile Valley and was on the Elephantine papyri, 1911, and all his working life he maintained a keen interest in ancient Egypt so that in his works on Egyptological subjects and references abound; his bibliography numbered over 12 books as well as others on which he collaborated, and in addition reached the total of more than 1,000 other items, including articles, critical notes, reviews, notices and essays; from this may be selected, The Vocalization of the Egyptian Syllabic Orthography, 1934, a standard work in which he had the advice of Gunn, and which if not wholly accepted by Egyptologists was nevertheless an important contribution to the subject; The Archaeology of Palestine, 1949, a classic and the work for which he is probably best known; The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment, another book in which he broke new ground; his last major work was Yahweh and The Gods of Canaan; a Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths, the Jordan Lectures, 1968; he also contributed articles to JEA and among numerous other journals a number relating to Egyptian subjects in BASOR; he died in Baltimore, Maryland, 19 Sept. 1971.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 11-12 fig. (portrait).