James B. Pritchard

James Bennett Pritchard (October 4, 1909 – January 1, 1997) was an American archeologist whose work explicated the interrelationships of the religions of ancient Palestine, Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. Pritchard was honored with the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement in 1983 from the Archaeological Institute of America.

He had a long association with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was professor of religious thought and the first curator of Biblical archaeology at the University Museum. Pritchard's strength lay in setting the Bible within its broader cultural contexts in the Ancient Near East. In 1977 Pritchard received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Pritchard authored the book Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, which was released in three editions (1950, 1955, 1969), universally referred to as ANET, which provided reliable translations of texts that threw light on the context of Ancient Near Eastern history and the Hebrew Bible.

Pritchard was born in Louisville, Kentucky; he graduated from Asbury College in 1930, and earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (1942).

Pritchard's archaeological reputation began to be established by his excavations at a site called el- Jib (1956–1962). He identified it as Gibeon by inscriptions on the handles of wine jars. He cataloged these in Hebrew Inscriptions and Stamps From Gibeon (1959), which included the first in-depth discussion of concentric-circle incisions on jar handles associated with LMLK seals. He explained the significance of his finds for a general audience in Gibeon: Where the Sun Stood Still (1962).

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