- Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. He is best known for his performances as the tough, wisecracking space pilot Han Solo in the "Star Wars" film series, and the adventurous archaeologist/action hero in the Indiana Jones film series. Ford has also been the star of many high-grossing hits Hollywood blockbusters such as "Air Force One" and "The Fugitive", which have distanced him from his famous Star Wars and Indiana Jones roles.
- Howard Carter
Howard Carter (May 9, 1873 – March 2, 1939) was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist. He is most famous as the discoverer of KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt.
- Zahi Hawass
Zahi Hawass (born in Damietta, on 28 May 1947) is an Egyptian archaeologist and a world-famous Egyptologist. In recent years, he has gained international renown in non-archaeological circles through his frequent appearances in television documentaries pertaining to early Egyptian civilization. Hawass received his Bachelor's degree from Alexandria University, and his Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania.
- Howard Carter
Howard Carter (May 9 1874 - March 2 1939) was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist born in Kensington, England. His childhood was spent primarily in the market town of Swaffham, Norfolk where he lived with his maiden aunts. He is most famous as the discoverer of KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
- Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806).
- Heinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann (January 6, 1822 - December 26, 1890) was a German-Russian treasure hunter, an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer, and an important excavator of Mycenaean sites, such as Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns.
- Flinders Petrie
Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie FRS (3 June 1853 - 28 July 1942), known as Flinders Petrie, was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology. He excavated at many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt such as Abydos and Amarna. Probably his most important discovery was that of the Merneptah Stele.
- Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans was a British archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Evans attended Harrow School and Brasenose College (The University of Oxford and University of Göttingen). Before Evans began work in Crete, archaeologist Minos Kalokairinos unearthed two of the palace’s storerooms in 1894, but the Turkish government interrupted his work before he could complete excavations.
- Michael Shanks
Michael Shanks is a British archaeologist who has been at the forefront of thinking and practice in archaeology (usually placed under the banner of post-processualism or interpretive archaeology). He has written widely on archaeology. His disciplinary impact was felt early through his collaboration with colleague Christopher Tilley.
- T. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO (August 16, 1888 - May 19, 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British soldier renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, but whose vivid personality and writings, along with the extraordinary breadth and variety of his activities and associations, have made him the object of fascination throughout the world as "Lawrence of Arabia".
- Kathleen Kenyon
Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon, important English archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent and excavator of a small area of Jericho in israel from 1952 to 1958. Her father, Sir Frederic Kenyon, was Director of the British Museum. Kathleen Kenyon was a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, and was the first woman to become president of the Oxford Archaeological Society.
- Mike Parker Pearson
Mike Parker Pearson is a professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield in England. His books include "The Archaeology of Death and Burial", "Bronze Age Britain", "Architecture and Order" and "In Search of the Red Slave" (this last publication in conjunction with his partner Karen Godden). He has carried out excavations in South Uist and Madagascar and at Durrington Walls.
- Jacquetta Hawkes
Jacquetta Hawkes, née Hopkins, (August 5 1910 - March 18 1996) was a British archaeologist. The daughter of Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, she married first Christopher Hawkes, then an Assistant Keeper at the British Museum, in 1933. From 1953, she was married to J.B. Priestley, her second husband. She is perhaps best known generally for her book "A Land" (1951).
- Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar is a third-generation Israeli archaeologist, specializing in Jerusalem and Phoenician archaeology. A senior fellow at the Shalem Center, she has worked on the Temple Mount excavations, as well as excavations at Achzib. In addition to heading the Shalem Center's Institute of Archaeology, she is affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- Mortimer Wheeler
Brigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA (September 10, 1890 Glasgow – July 22, 1976 London), was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and London University where he achieved an MA degree in 1912. In 1913 he won the studentship for archaeology established jointly by the London University and the Society of Antiquaries in memory of Augustus Wollaston Franks.
- Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas (Vilnius, Lithuania January 23, 1921 – Los Angeles, United States February 2, 1994) a Lithuanian-American archeologist, researched the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological interpretation.
- Israel Finkelstein
Israel Finkelstein is the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University. Born in Petah Tikva, he was previously Director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University from 1996-2002. He is currently the co-director of the renewed excavations at the important archaeological site of Megiddo in northern Israel.
- Alexander Thom
Professor Alexander Thom was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the Megalithic yard. A graduate of the University of Glasgow, he returned there as a lecturer from 1922–1939. Thom later became a professor of engineering at the University of Oxford when he became interested in the methods used by prehistoric peoples in building megalithic monuments especially the stone circles of the British Isles. He travelled in the company of his son Archie, …
- Gertrude Bell
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was a British writer, traveller, political analyst, administrator in Arabia, and an archaeologist who found Mesopotamian ruins. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1917. Bell and T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) are recognized as almost wholly responsible for creating the Hashimite dynasty in Jordan and the modern state of Iraq.
- Hershel Shanks
Hershel Shanks (born March 8, 1930, Sharon, Pennsylvania) is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society and the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review and has written and edited numerous works on Biblical archaeology including the Dead Sea Scrolls. Shanks is widely regarded as being a leading figure in communicating the world of biblical archaeology to general readers through his magazines, books, and conferences.
- Susanne Osthoff
Susanne Kristina Osthoff (born 7 March 1962 in Munich) is a German archaeologist who had worked in Iraq since 1991 until being taken hostage there on November 25, 2005. She was freed by her captors on December 18, 2005.
- Leonard Woolley
Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April, 1880-20 February, 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is considered to have been one of the first "modern" archaeologists, and was knighted in 1935 for his services to archaeology. The son of a clergyman, Woolley was born in London and educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and New College, Oxford. In 1905, he became assistant keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
- John Evans
Sir John Evans was an English archaeologist and geologist. John Evans was the son of the Rev. Dr A. B. Evans, headmaster of Market Bosworth Grammar School, and was born at Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire. He was for many years head of the extensive paper manufactory of Messrs John Dickinson at Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead, but was especially distinguished as an antiquary and numismatist, that is, a collector of ancient objects and coins.
- Ian Hodder
Ian Hodder is a British archaeologist and pioneer of postprocessualist theory in archaeology. As of 2005, he is Dunlevie Family Professor and Chair of the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University in the United States.
- Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin (Hebrew: יגאל ידין, born Yigal Sukenik on March 20, 1917, died June 28, 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli actor Yossi Yadin was his brother. Yadin was born in 1917 to noted archeologist Eliezer Sukenik. He joined the Haganah at age fifteen and served there in a variety of different capacities.
- John Skinner
The Rev. John Skinner (born 1772 - died 1839), was a parish vicar and amateur antiquarian and archaeologist operating mainly in the area of Bath and the villages of northern Somerset in the early nineteenth century.
- John Marshall
Sir John Hubert Marshall (March 19, 1876 Chester - August 17, 1958 Guildford) was the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928. He was responsible for the excavation that lead to the discovery of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, two of the main cities that comprise the Indus Valley Civilization. Marshall was educated at Cambridge. In 1902 he was appointed Director-General of Archaeology within the British Indian administration, …
- Nelson Glueck
Nelson Glueck (1900-1971) was an American rabbi, academic and archaeologist. Dr. Glueck served as president of Hebrew Union College from 1947 until his death, and his pioneering work in the field of "biblical archeology" resulted in the discovery of 1,500 ancient sites. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1900 to German Jewish parents, Glueck developed a passion for religion early in life, and was ordained as a Reform Jewish rabbi in 1923.
- Louis Leakey
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (August 7, 1903 - October 1, 1972) was an Kenyan archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Having been a prime mover in establishing a tradition of palaeoanthropological inquiry, he was able to motivate the next generation to continue it, …
- Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE (6 May, 1904–19 August, 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history, and the second husband of the novelist Dame Agatha Christie. He was born in London, educated at Lancing College, and studied classics at New College, Oxford. He first worked as an apprentice to Leonard Woolley at the archaeological site of Ur (1925–31), which was thought to be the capital of Mesopotamian civilization.
- Ehud Netzer
Ehud Netzer (b. 1934) is an Israeli archaeologist and Professor "emeritus" at the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The subjects he teaches combine architecture and archeology. An expert on the architecture of Herod the Great, Netzer led a team of archaeologists who in 2007 reported that they located the tomb of Herod the Great in Herodium, south of Jerusalem.
- Mary Leakey
Mary Leakey (February 6 1913 - December 9 1996) was a British archaeologist, who, along with others, discovered the first skull of a fossil ape on Rusinga Island and also a noted robust Australopithecine called Zinjanthropus at Olduvai. For much of her career she worked with her husband Louis Leakey in Olduvai Gorge, uncovering the tools and fossils of ancient hominines. She developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai.
- Amihai Mazar
Amihai "Ami" Mazar (born 1942) is an Israeli archaeologist. Born in Haifa, Israel (then in Palestine), he is currently (since 1994) Professor at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, holding the Eleazer Sukenik Chair in the Archaeology of Israel.
- William G. Dever
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times, who was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, from 1975 to 2002. Dever is a 1955 graduate of Milligan College, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966. Dever was Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum-Hebrew Union College Excavations at Gezer from 1966-71, …
- Julian Richards
Julian Richards FSA, MIFA (born 1951, Nottingham) is a British television and radio presenter, writer and archaeologist with over 30 years experience of fieldwork and publication.
- William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright was an American Orientalist, pioneer archaeologist, biblical scholar, linguist and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement. His student, George Ernest Wright, followed in his footsteps as the leader of that movement. Others among his students, notably Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, …
- James Stewart
James R. Stewart (July 3, 1913, Sydney - February 6, 1962, Bathurst) was a noted Australian archaeologist of Cyprus and the Ancient Near East at the University of Sydney.
- Barry Cunliffe
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe CBE (born December 10, 1939), known as Barry Cunliffe, has been Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford since 1972. After studying at Northern Grammar School (now Mayfield School (Portsmouth), and reading archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge, he became a lecturer at the University of Bristol in 1963.
- Ron Wyatt
Ronald Eldon Wyatt (1933 - August 4, 1999) was a controversial self-styled archaeologist (he had no training in the discipline and held no professional position) who claimed to have found many significant biblical sites and artifacts. His claims are dismissed by the scientific and historical communities.
- Richard Leakey
Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (born 19 December 1944 in Nairobi, Kenya), is a Kenyan paleontologist, archaeologist and conservationist. He is the second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, the younger brother of Colin Leakey.