Multitasking across Cultures

AbstractReisner traveled to Istanbul to try to secure a firman (permit) for Harvard excavations at Samaria, but delays resulted in a start to the excavations only in 1908, when Reisner was committed elsewhere. Back at Giza in 1906, Albert Lythgoe became disaffected with both the arrangement of the expedition and the collection strategy of the MFA, or so he said. He left the MFA’s curatorship (and Reisner’s expedition) for the Metropolitan Museum in New York. After several seasons of work in the Giza Western Cemetery, Reisner shifted over to the Menkaure Pyramid Temple and discovered the colossal calcite seated statue of Menkaure (in several pieces). Facing financial challenges, the expedition was “rescued” when the Egyptian government approached him for an archaeological survey in northern Nubia prior to its flooding from the forthcoming Aswan Dam. He was joined by a new assistant from Harvard, Oric Bates. Two seasons in, Reisner sought freedom from his British taskmasters on the Archaeological Survey of Nubia, and surprised his mentor David Gordon Lyon, during the latter’s visit to Giza, by declaring himself ready to take over the Samaria excavations.