Manfred Bietak

Manfred Bietak (born 6 October 1940, Vienna) is an Austrian archaeologist. He is Professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Vienna and Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo 1973-2009. He is currently Chairman of the Vienna Institute of Archaeological Science at the University of Vienna and Chairman of the Commission for Egypt and the Levant at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1997 and 2006, he was Visiting Professor at the Collège de France; in 2004, he was Martha Whitcomb Visiting Professor at Harvard.

Bietak is best known as the director of the Austrian excavations at two sites in the Nile delta: Tell El-Dab'a, which was the location of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos period; and Piramesse, which was the capital of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The site was also most probably the naval base Peru-nefer of Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II. A palace precinct of those kings, furnished with Minoan frescoes was one of the most important discoveries. Bietak has also conducted excavations in western Thebes (Luqsor), where he discovered the huge tomb of Ankh-Hor, Chief steward of the Divine Wife of Amun Nitokris (26th Dynasty).

Bietak studied archeology at University of Vienna, obtaining his Dr. phil. in 1964 and an honorary PhD. in 2009. In 1961-1964, he took part in the archaeological rescue expedition of UNESCO at Sayala in Nubia, and he also supervised excavations there; in 1965 he was the director of the expedition. During 1966-1972, he was the Scientific Secretary and later the Scientific Counsellor at the Austrian Embassy in Cairo. In 1973, he founded the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo; he has been the director of the institute till 2009. 1986-2009 he was Chairman of the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Vienna. Since 1999 he is also the First Speaker of the "Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. — SCIEM 2000" at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 2003, he was appointed Chairman at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science at the University of Vienna.

Bietak has been elected to several scholarly institutions: Foreign Honorary Member of the Archaeological Institute of America; Full Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences; Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy; Full Member of German Archaeological Institute; Membre titulaire de l'Institut d'Égypte; Foreign Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters; Membre associé de l'Institut de France : Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg; Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the following: Council of the International Union of Egyptologists; Scientific Committee of the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East; Visiting Committee of the Egyptian Department of the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Additionally, he has supervised or reviewed at least 40 Ph.D. theses and at least 18 Masters theses, at the universities of Amsterdam, Berlin, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Göttingen, Hamburg, Helwan, London, Vienna.

In 2006, there was a three-volume festschrift published in his honour. The festschrift includes a list of works that Bietak authored or co-authored up to 2006: 21 monographs, 164 research articles, and 17 review articles. Bietak has also edited or co-edited 8 periodicals, including the Egyptological journal Egypt and the Levant.

External links

• Austrian Archaeological Institute: Cairo Branch
• Manfred Bietak at the Austrian Academy of Sciences
• SCIEM 2000  Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C.
• Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science

 

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Name	Bietak, Manfred
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Date of birth	October 6, 1940
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