Burton, Harry

British archaeologist and photographer. Born, Stamford 1879. Died, Asyut 1940. Began his photographic career in Florence with the art historian Henry Hobart Cust. He was then engaged as a excavator at Thebes by Theodore Davis between 1910-14. Then from 1914 onwards he worked for the rest of his career as a photographer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His task was to record many of the royal and private tombs at Thebes. Between 1922 and 1933 he was lent by the Metropolitan Museum to Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter to make a photographic record during the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 96 fig. (portrait).