| Page 1012 | |
and Paleoanthropology. In 1963, he was appointed director of the Paleoanthropological Research Laboratory, and from 1979 until his death he was chairman of the Beijing Natural History Museum. During the 1950s and 1960s, Pei excavated sites and analyzed archaeological material from all over China—including the Upper Pleistocene site of Dingcun in Shanxi Province, the Paleolithic site of Guanyin cave in southern China—and from all periods, including the Neolithic and dynastic. These expeditions not only generated much of the information on which the current understanding of early Chinese prehistory rests, they also provided opportunities for the training of most of China’s cadre of professional paleoanthropologists until the 1970s.
References
For references, see Encyclopedia of Archaeology: The Great Archaeologists, Vol. 1. Ed. Tim Murray (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999), pp. 449–450.
(1812–1894)
Born in Cornwall, England, the son of a sea captain, William Pengelly was the product of a village school and self-education. He began teaching, opened his own school, and was involved with the politics of improving education and ensuring universal access to it. He helped to found the Mechanics Institute (1837) and the Natural History Society (1844), both in his home town of Torquay, and the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art (1862). He became a private tutor of mathematics and geology and a popular public lecturer on those subjects.
Pengelly’s principal interest was in the geology of Devonshire, early human history, and the antiquity of humanity, and he published articles on these subjects in the journals of the Royal Society, the Geological Society of London, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1846, Pengelly began to reexplore the prehistoric cave site at kent’s cavern, which had been excavated by amateur archaeologist Father MacEnery in 1825, where Paleolithic artifacts and the remains of extinct animals had been found beneath an undisturbed stalagmite floor. Pengelly systematically reexcavated the cave floor and found large numbers of stone and bone tools. Although the results converted Pengelly to the belief in a longer period for human antiquity, they were discounted by others.
In 1858, he explored and excavated brixham cave with the paleontologist hugh falconer under the auspices of the Royal and Geological Societies of London. They unearthed the bones of several extinct fossil animals and flint knives and thus provided convincing proof of high human antiquity. Pengelly became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1850 and received its Lyell Medal in 1886. In 1863, he was elected to the Royal Society.
Situated 58 kilometers from Shiraz in southwestern iran, Persepolis was developed mainly by the Persian king Darius I around 500 b.c. and destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 b.c. Long visited by travelers and explorers, Persepolis was first systematically excavated by Ernst Herzfeld from 1931 to 1939 and later studied by E. F. Schmidt for the oriental institute of chicago. Subsequent work has been undertaken by the Iranian Archaeological Service, directed by Andre Godard initially and then by Ali Sami. The site is an architectural masterpiece made up of a series of terraces, gateways, palaces, and staircases, the most famous of which contains exquisite carvings of people (from all parts of the Persian Empire) bearing tribute to the “Great King”—Darius I. At the head of this staircase is the Gate of All Nations built by Xerxes I, but the most magnificent structure is the Apadana (or Hall of Audience) built by Darius I and Xerxes I. Excavations and restoration work continue at the site today.
Detail of carvings on the palace of the Persian king Xerxes I
(Image Select)
See also
French Archaeology in Egypt and the Middle East
| |