Mark Lehner (born 1950 in Dakota)[citation needed] is an American archaeologist with more than 30 years of experience excavating in Egypt. He is the director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) and has appeared in numerous television documentaries.[1][2]
His international team currently runs the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, excavating and mapping the ancient city of the builders of the Giza pyramid complex, which dates to the fourth dynasty of Egypt.[citation needed] He discovered that Pyramid G1-a, one of the subsidiary pyramids of the Great Pyramid, belonged to Hetepheres I; it was originally thought to belong to Queen Meritites I.[citation needed]
Education and career
The Great Sphinx in Egypt
Lehner first went to Egypt as a student in the 1970s. Intrigued by the mysteries of the "Sleeping Prophet", Edgar Cayce, Lehner "found that [my] initial notions about the ancient civilization along the Nile could not stand up to the bedrock reality of the Giza Plateau".[1] He turned to the scientific method of discovery in order to understand the culture better, returning some years later to complete a doctoral degree at Yale University.[citation needed] Lehner's 1991 dissertation was titled Archaeology of an image: The Great Sphinx of Giza.[citation needed]
Lehner's team has more recently[when?] included parts of Menkaure's valley temple and the town attached to the monument of Queen Khentkawes in their excavations. AERA's 2009 field season was recorded in a blog.[3] AERA has conducted a number of archaeological field schools for Egyptian antiquities inspectors under the auspices of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. The AERA team has run basic and advanced courses at Giza, as well as courses in salvage archaeology along the Avenue of Sphinxes north of Luxor Temple in the city of Luxor.
Lehner's book, "The Complete Pyramids" (1997), is an exhaustive catalogue of Egypt's many pyramid sites.[according to whom?] He has appeared in many television programs about Ancient Egypt. He is a visiting assistant professor of Egyptian archaeology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.[citation needed]
Ramp model by Mark Lehner
In 1985, he published a proposal for building the Great Pyramid using two ramps. The outer ramp starts in the south at the quarries and leads to the southwest corner of the pyramid. The second ramp starts at the southeast corner and flows into the outer ramp. From the junction point, the ramp spirals upwards.[4][5]
Lehner took part in a heated American Association for the Advancement of Science debate in 1992 on the age of the Sphinx at Giza which "spilled over to a news conference and then a hallway confrontation".
His conclusions drawn from radiocarbon dating projects in 1984 (funded by "friends and supporters of the Edgar Cayce Foundation") and 1994/95 ('The David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project') that tested on "tiny pieces of [wood and wood charcoal], along with reed and straw left by the ancient builders" was that the Giza Necropolis was built in a span of 85 years between 2589 and 2504 BC.[6]
Television credits
Crew
Into the Great Pyramid (2002) (TV) (consultant: archaeology)
Mysteries of Egypt (1998) (scientific consultant)
Saving the Sphinx (1998) (TV) (historical consultant)
Appearances
Pyramides: Les Mystères Révélés (2019) (TV)
Secret History Of The Sphinx (2017) (TV)
Riddles of the Sphinx (2010) (TV)
Heritage Key: Pyramid Builders (2009) (TV)
Into the Great Pyramid (2002) (TV)
Secrets of the Pharaohs: Lost City of the Pyramids (2001) (TV)
Saving the Sphinx (1998) (TV)
Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs (1997) (TV)
Mummies: Tales from the Egyptian Crypts (1996) (TV)
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