George T. Scanlon, 1925-2014, Art Historian and Excavator of Fustat

George Scanlon (AUC)

I have belatedly learned that archaeologist and art historian George T. Scanlon died in New York City on July 13 at the age of 89.

In May we talked about potential threats to the excavations at Fustat (Part I, Part II), and anyone with a knowledge of the archaeology of that first Islamic capital of Egypt will be well-acquainted with Scanlon's name (though he also excavated in Nubia). Onetime head of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), and Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Cairo from 1975-2011 (a post he took up soon after Sir K.A.C. Creswell left), he was an institution in Cairo and at AUC.

Though we met a few times, I didn't know him well, so I will let others pay tribute:

The official AUC announcement.

An appreciation by Maria Golia at The Arabist.

A 2010 tribute in the ARCE Bulletin on the occasion of Scanlon being honored by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (including the inevitable Zahi Hawass), written by Jere L. Bacharach, a historian who did numismatic work on the coins of Fustat.