University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Rudolf Anthes, born in Hamburg, Germany in 1896, was a famed Egyptologist and Philologist who initially studied theology and oriental languages in his college and early graduate school programs. After serving in the German army in WWI, Anthes completed his Ph.D. in Egyptology and Philology at the University of Berlin. After WWII, Anthes was working as the Director of the Berlin Museum. However he was not happy with the policies of the new German Democratic Republic and the Penn Museum came to his rescue. Froelich Rainey and Ephraim Speiser asked Anthes to rejoin the staff as the Curator of the Egyptian section. The Rudolf Anthes Egyptian section records consist of one and one-half archival boxes of correspondence and administrative records.