Hermann Junker

Hermann Junker (November 29, 1877 in Bendorf – January 9, 1962 in Vienna) was a German archaeologist best known for his discovery of the Merimde-Benisalam site in the West Nile Delta in Lower Egypt in 1928.

Junker was born in 1877 in Bendorf, the son of an accountant. In 1896 he joined the seminary at Trier, studying theology, where he developed an interest in philosophy and oriental languages. After four years of study Junker entered the priesthood and became a chaplain in Ahrweiler, continuing his language studies with Alfred Wiedemann in Bonn, gradually devoting himself only to Egyptology.

In 1901 Junker began studying under Adolf Erman in Berlin, publishing his dissertation in 1903 titled "On the writing system in the Temple of Hathor in Dendera".

In 1906 he published a grammar of the texts at Dendera, which got him an appointment in 1907 as associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Vienna. In 1908 he traveled for the first time to Egypt for the Prussian Academy of Sciences to help document the texts in the Temple of Philae. As a member of the Egyptian Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences he was officially proposed as a field director.

In winter 1909/10 Junker began the first official Austrian excavations in the village of Tura near Cairo, where he found rich prehistoric finds that he sent to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The following winter he led excavations at El-Kubanieh south of Aswan, finding prehistoric tombs and cemeteries from the Middle Kingdom and the Nubian C-group. His interest in the ancient Nubian people drew him to Toschke in Middle Nubia, which he excavated in 1911-12. As a result of his work, in 1912 he was appointed full professor of Egyptology at the University of Vienna.

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