William Foxwell Albright: Great American Archaeologist

Introduction

William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist born in Chile. He is well remembered for his involvement in excavation of the biblical sites and his expertise in history and culture of the Near East. During his life, he conducted excavations at several places in Palestine. His most renowned work is From the Stone Age to Christianity, which he finished in 1940. In this work, Albright emphasized the development of the belief of a human being in his creator (God). Thereafter, in 1947, he became the first foreign professional to make an affirmation that the scrolls found in the Dead Sea were genuine. He termed this discovery as “the most momentous discovery in modern time pertaining to the Bible.”¹ Several decades have passed since Albright’s death, but he will never stop to be perceived as a genius for he achieved unbelievable heights in his profession.² There are many people who support this idea; among these, there are respected biblical scholars, Levantine archaeologists, and numerous researchers from the Near East who have known Albright, worked with him, or simply respected what he was doing. William Foxwell Albright’s life has been saturated with interesting events that had a significant influence on the development of his interests and his success in his career; the contributions that he made into the field of archaeology are invaluable and these contributions resulted in his being so renowned these days.

History of William Foxwell Albright’s Life

William Foxwell Albright was born on May 24, 1891 in Coquimbo, Chile. His father and mother were Methodist missionaries³; they had six children and William was the eldest. Their family could hardly be called rich or even well-to-do; though the parents could not afford themselves much, they still tried to raise their children in a caring atmosphere and give them the best of what they could afford. This family stayed in a missionary compound isolated from the people of Chile for quite a long time. They were reminded about the differences in culture they had with other people on a regular basis.

While he was still a young boy, William found it had to get along with other children in the neighborhood. When sent out somewhere by his parents, he always tried to avoid coming across the Chilean children for he feared them much. These children used to beat him up and often threw stones at him calling him “gringo”. In most of the cases, the boy’s being a protestant in a country dominated by the Catholics was the major reason for these children teasing him. Apart from this, there were other things that made Albright an object of derision for the Chilean children. Albright has been strong physically and tall enough; however, he had rather bad eyesight and, when reading a book, he had to hold it close to his face. Since he read much, he was afraid of eventually becoming blind this is why he learned to use the Braille system of reading, which is a system that blind people use for reading and writing. In addition to this, at the age of five, Albright injured his hand badly when working at the farm. As a result, his left hand was almost completely useless. These problems with physical health, as well as the fact that Albright was a missionary child, made him rather lonely when a child – he rarely played with other children and spent most of time in his father’s library reading.

William Albright became interested in Biblical archaeology at a quite early age. He developed this interest when he was only eight years old. By the time he turned ten, he already managed to save enough money for purchasing a book that he long has been dreaming about. This was a book on the history of Assyria and Babylonia written in English. William read this book over and over again until he managed to memorize every single word in it. In addition, already at that age, William started learning the Hebrew language for he wished to understand the Bible, as well as the biblical history.⁴

In 1903, William Albright, together with the whole family, moved back to Iowa. There were several Methodist churches there to which William’s father was assigned as a pastor. In 1907, at the age of sixteen, William entered Upper Iowa University and this was the same university his father once used to attend. He graduated from this university in 1912 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and classics. During the summers, Albright often had to work because his family was rather poor. At his age and with his experience (he was only a student), work at a farm was the only thing that he could do. William, who had a crippled hand, managed to exercise it so much during his work at the farm, that he was able even to milk cows using his both hands equally. These years of hard work and constant life in poverty taught him a lesson; William realized that people themselves were the creators of their own destinies and becoming prosperous depended only on how much one wanted this. Those were namely these years of hard labor that toughened Albright and prepared him for the career of archaeologist. This is a profession where people have to face harsh reality of life every day, especially when they work in remote parts of the world.

It is also worth mentioning that Albright took a short time employment as a high school principal before receiving a scholarship to join Johns Hopkins University. By the time he joined this university, he was already quite proficient in four languages: German, Spanish, Latin, and Greek; at this, he managed to learn two of the latter on his own. More than that, he had some knowledge of Assyrian and Hebrew. William also possessed vast knowledge of ancient cultures and ancient history as well.

When he joined Johns Hopkins University, he started studying the Akkadian culture and, in 1916, he obtained his doctorate. To get a degree, he wrote a dissertation on “The Assyrian Deluge Epic”; this was an ancient myth that resembled the biblical story of the flood and Noah. By this time, he had already carried out publication of more than ten scholarly articles. Despite such an impressive start, William still could not count on getting work as a professor and he did not get one, of course. Between 1916 and 1919, William served in labor battalions (this was the period when World War I was taking place); apart from this, he also held research fellowships. In 1921, he married Ruth Norton (five years after he met her); later, she obtained a PhD in Sanskrit literature at Johns Hopkins University.

William went on with his study and spent his time writing on different Near Eastern topics. In 1920-1921, he served as an acting director of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. In 1922, he assumed full directorship of the school. He went on serving in this position until the year 1936. At the same time, William Albright was a professor at Johns Hopkins University where he taught a rare subject, Semitic Languages (these belong to Afro-Asiatic languages). He remained at this position for the whole 29 years, starting from 1929 when he first occupied it and ending with 1958 when he retired.

William Albright has been learning new languages throughout his life. While he was living in Palestine, he decided to learn Arabic language; apart from it, he also learned Modern Hebrew (to be more exact, he significantly expanded his knowledge of Hebrew that he managed to acquire before this). In addition to this, William also enlarged the scope of his writing; now his works included several new studies some of which concerned ancient topography. However, he did not write solely on this topic. When living and making research in Palestine, William got convinced “that much of the Bible could be considered a historical document, that many of the cities mentioned in it existed and that remnants of them could perhaps still be found.”⁵

History of William Foxwell Albright’s Contributions to archaeology

While William Albright was still a young boy, his worries were that all the good archaeological sites in Palestine would be dug up far before he would attain the right age to engage in working as an archaeologist. However, as he understood later, there was no need for these concerns. In 1922, he made a discovery that Tell el-Ful, which was a mound not far from Jerusalem (four miles north), was the site where the first capital of Jerusalem was located. This discovery was more than important, because what Albright has found was the major city of Israel – the first discovery of this kind. He commenced a minor excavation at that place, and he came back to carry out more work on this site in 1934.⁶ Also, William Albright is known for the work he has done with Saul. This is one of the most famous palace-fortresses in Palestine. The confirmation of this discovery took place in 1964, right before King Hussein’s building a palace of his own on the top of the remains of this palace.

Before William Albright started working in archaeology, it was rather problematic for the specialists in this field to establish the age of some ruins that they discovered. Rather often, there was much variation and imprecision in the chronology of those sites that they dug up or excavated. However, Albright, as soon as he became proficient in this field, was able to come up with a technique that was new and this technique was pottery chronology. Using this technique, the archaeologists had to involve in determining the ages of different kinds of pottery, employing their style, the positions they held in different ruins, as well as the relationships they had to other items the age of which could be defined. With the help of this, when tracing similar styles of pottery in a non-dated ruin, the data about the ruins the age and type of which the archaeologists know is used to determine which ancient structures exactly have been utilized. William Albright turned out to be so much skilled in this technique that he was able to determine whether a particular site could be prehistoric or not. What is even more important, William Albright advanced this technique much faster than other scholars, which is why it is often associated with his name: “While earlier scholars ushered in typological and chronological analysis of artifacts and pottery, it was Albright who raised the standard of pottery publication and presentation in the early 1930s.”⁷

Another set of serious contributions was made by Albright into archaeology in 1920-1930. In this period, Albright was engaged in excavating a site known as Tell Beit Mirsim. After doing some research, the archaeologist came to a conclusion that this was namely the site referred to as Debir in the Bible. Albright laid out his ideas in the Annual of the school he was working for (the American Schools of Oriental Research); in his work, he discussed all ten layers of the site in details, as well as the pottery he and his group succeeded to find there. Besides, in 1933, taking into account his new findings, he introduced certain corrections into the chronology of the Bronze Age layers of this site. Some time later, in 1938 and 1943, new information about these layers, as well as the Iron-Age layers was obtained. This work of Albright’s has given the archaeology of Palestine a status of a science and significantly changed it, as well as the attitude of scholars towards it. In addition to William Albright’s work and excavation in chronology, he also advanced the archaeology of the Near East; he achieved this through sharing his knowledge with the archaeologists who worked in this part of the world.

In the course of his life, Albright had been honored by several awards, medals, and doctorates. One day he even obtained a title of the “Worthy one of Jerusalem”. This was the first award that was ever given to a person who was not a Jew. After his death, a number of scholars expressed a desire to continue his work; they have been much inspired by what Albright has achieved and became specialists in some of the areas new to archaeology, those areas that have been pioneered by Albright. It is also worth noting that Albright Institute of Archaeological Research that used to be known as The American Schools of Oriental Research was named after him. This was done to express gratitude for a great contribution that Albright made into this field. William Foxwell Albright died on September 19, 1971 after a series of multiple strokes in Baltimore, Maryland.

Conclusion

William Foxwell Albright was a great scholar and he still remains an important figure in archaeology due to the contributions he made into this field. During his life, Albright managed to learn many languages for he has always been interested in the language and culture of the countries that he happened to live in. This presents him as an open-minded person always ready to learn something new and never wasting his time. As a child, Albright was often subjected to the sneers of children of another religion (this was when he and his parents lived in Chile). Closer to the end of his life, however, he has shown that a gap between people of different religions can be bridged. He obtained a reward that was never given to non-Jews before, and this served as the sign that the country he has done so much for accepted him as a native.

The contributions that Albright made into the field of archaeology are difficult, if not impossible, to overestimate. The only technique of pottery chronology that he developed makes this person invaluable for archaeology. All other similar techniques used before were never effective and, until Albright started dealing with dating the ruins found at ancient sites, it was never possible to determine exactly the age of the ruins. This shows how important Albright was for archaeology and allows understanding why there were so many people who respected him and who, inspired by his teachings, also chose to work in archaeology.

Bibliography

1. Anonymous, 1999. “W. F. Albright”.
2. Barton, John. The Biblical World. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2004.
3. Dessel, John.2002. “Reading between the lines: W. F. Albright “in” the field and “on” the field. Near East”. Archaeol. 65:43 -50.
4. Greenberg, Raphael. “New light on the Early Iron Age at Tell Beit Mirsim. Bull”. Am. Sch. Orient. Res. 265 (1987):5 5-80.
5. Herr, Larry. “W. F. Albright and the history of pottery in Palestine”. Near East. Archaeol. 65 (2002): 51-55.
6. Levy, Thomas and Freedman, David. 2009. “William Foxwell Albright”.
7. No author. “William Albright.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 21. Detroit: Gale, 2004.

Footnotes

1. Anonymous. “W. F. Albright”.
2. Thomas, Levy and David Freedman. “William Foxwell Albright”.
3. John Barton, The Biblical World (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2004), 349.
4. No author, “William Albright.” In Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 21 (Detroit: Gale, 2004), 1-3.
5. No author 2004, para. 4.
6. Dessel, John, “Reading between the lines: W. F. Albright “in” the field and “on” the field”. Near East. Archaeol. 65(2004): 43 -50.
7. Greenberg, Raphael. “New light on the Early Iron Age at Tell BeitMirsim.“ Bull. Am. Sch. Orient. Res. 265 (1987): 52.