Robert Brier (; born December 13, 1943) is an American

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

specializing in

paleopathology Paleopathology, also spelled palaeopathology, is the study of ancient diseases and injuries in organisms through the examination of fossils, mummified tissue, skeletal remains, and analysis of coprolites. Specific sources in the study of ancie ...

. A senior research fellow at Long Island University/

LIU Post LIU Post (formally, the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and often referred to as C.W. Post) is a private university in Brookville, New York. It is the largest campus of the private Long Island University system. The campus is named ...

, he has researched and published on

mummies A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

and the mummification process and has appeared in many

Discovery Civilization Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million Amer ...

TLC Network TLC is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. First established in 1980 as The Learning Channel, it initially focused on educational and instructional programming. By the late 1990s, after an acquisition by the ow ...

, and National Geographic documentaries, primarily on ancient Egypt.

Background

Born and raised in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York, Brier earned his bachelor's degree from Hunter College of the City University of New York. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

in 1970 and began teaching at Long Island University in 1972. He served as chairman of the philosophy department from 1981 to 1996 and has also served as the director of the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

' "Egyptology Today" program. He was appointed senior research fellow at

in 2004. In addition to his career at Long Island University, Brier has taught ancient Egyptian at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

and

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...

Webb Institute Webb Institute is a private college focused on engineering and located in Glen Cove, New York. Each graduate of Webb Institute earns a Bachelor of Science degree in naval architecture and marine engineering. Successful candidates for admission r ...

for many years.

Research and other achievements

Brier has worked in pyramids and tombs in 15 countries and conducted research in mummification practices worldwide. He has investigated well-known mummies such as

Tutankhamen Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...

, Ramses the Great,

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

Eva Perón María Eva Duarte de Perón (; ; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as just Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 19 ...

(more commonly known as

Evita Evita may refer to: Arts * Evita (1996 film), ''Evita'' (1996 film), a 1996 American musical drama film based on the 1976 concept album of the same name * Evita (2008 film), ''Evita'' (2008 film), a documentary about Eva Péron * Evita (album), ''E ...

), and the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

family. In 1994, Brier and a colleague, Ronald Wade, director of the State Anatomy Board of Maryland, mummified a human cadaver using ancient Egyptian techniques which they noted was the first known effort in 2,000 years. This research earned Brier the affectionate nickname "Mr. Mummy" and was also the subject of the National Geographic television special of the same name, which made him a household name. He is also the host of several television programs for the

including ''The Great Egyptians'', ''Pyramids'', ''Mummies and Tombs'', and ''Mummy Detective''. His research has been featured in ''Archaeology Magazine'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'',

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, '' 60 Minutes'' and ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

''. In 1999, Brier gave a series of 48 specially-prepared lectures entitled "The History of Ancient Egypt" for

The Teaching Company The Teaching Company, doing business as Wondrium, is a media production company that produces educational, video and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, series under two content brands - Wondrium and The Great Courses. The comp ...

. He later did two more series of lectures for them. One focused on "Great Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt" and the other "Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs".

Awards and recognition

*Fulbright Fellowship to Turkey 1985 *National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Islamic Science, Columbia University, 1986 *David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1988 *Director, National Endowment for the Humanities "Egyptology Today" Program, 1992–94 *TASA Award for Lifetime of Scholarship, 2002 *Emmy Nomination, Best TV Documentary, Murder of Tutankhamen, 1997

Published works

In addition to his above mentioned research, Brier has also written several articles and books, including: *"Precognition and the philosophy of science: An essay on backward causation" (1974) *"The Glory of Ancient Egypt: A Collection of Rare Engravings from the Napoleonic Expedition" (1990) *"Egyptomania" (June, 1992) *"Egyptian Mummies : Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art" (March 14, 1996) *"The Encyclopedia of Mummies" (September, 1998) *"The Murder of Tutankhamen" (March 1, 1999) *"The Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians" (with Hoyt Hobbs) (December 30, 1999) *''The History of Ancient Egypt'' (2001, lectures published by

) *''Great Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt'' (2004, lectures published by The Teaching Company) *"The Secret of the Great Pyramid" (with Jean-Pierre Houdin) (October 6, 2008) *''Immunological identification of Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania infantum in the skeletal remains of the Medici family," Proceedings of the XVIII Congress of Italian Anthropological Association, 2009 *"Return to the Great Pyramid," Archaeology Magazine, 2009 *Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs (Nov 12, 2013) *''Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs'' (2016, lectures published by The Teaching Company, now

The Great Courses The Teaching Company, doing business as Wondrium, is a media production company that produces educational, video and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, series under two content brands - Wondrium and The Great Courses. The compa ...

) *''Cleopatra's Needles: The Lost Obelisks of Egypt''. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Brier has also written magazine articles for ''KMT'', ''Archaeology'', and others.

Archaeological tours

Bob Brier leads Egyptology tours fo
Far Horizons Archaeological and Cultural trips
* Bob Brier's tour pag
Bob Brier

References

External links

LIU Post Faculty: Bob BrierBob Brier Official Website
*

University of Vermont, Fleming Museum: "Egyptologist Presents Case for King Tutankhamen's Murder" (October 4, 2005)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brier, Bob American Egyptologists American non-fiction writers Paleopathologists 1943 births Living people