Manfred Bietak

Manfred Bietak (born in Vienna) is an Austrian archaeologist. He is professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Vienna and founder and Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo 1973-2009. He was Chairman of the Institute of Egyptology (1984-2009) and of the Vienna Institute of Archaeological Science (2004-2011) at the University of Vienna and Chairman of the Commission for Egypt and the Levant at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 1999-2011 he was also founder and the First Speaker of the Special Research Programme (SFB) "Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. — SCIEM 2000" at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1997 and 2006, he was Visiting Professor at the Collège de France; in 2004, he was Martha Whitcomb Visiting Professor at Harvard, 2016/17 Guest Scholar at the Getty Research Institute at Malibu, Ca. Bietak is best known as the director of the Austrian excavations at two sites in the Nile delta: Tell El-Dab'a, which was identified as the location of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos period; and Piramesse, which was the capital of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The site was also most probably the naval base Peru-nefer of Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II. A palace precinct of those kings, furnished with Minoan frescoes was one of the most important discoveries. Bietak has also conducted excavations in western Thebes (Luqsor), where he discovered the huge tomb of Ankh-Hor, Chief steward of the Divine Wife of Amun Nitokris (26th Dynasty). Since 2013 he conducts excavations at the Middle Kingdom Palace at Bubastis.