Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (13.2001(2002))

OBITUARY


William J. Murnane
1945-2000

I remember Bill, as his friends used to call him, as a man of action, always busy and practically
never without a smile on his face. Always ready to share the enormous knowledge he had. He was
connected with the University of Chicago from the very beginning. In 1973 he completed his Ph.D.
dissertation on Ancient Egyptian coregencies, which was published four years later and which has not
lost any of its currency even today. Shortly before that he joined the Oriental Institute Epigraphic
Survey as an epigrapher and worked at the Chicago House in Luxor until 1983. He also partici-
pated in discussions concerning the temples of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III at Deir el-Bahari,
which the Polish team has been restoring in the past few dozen years. He showed himself then as a
great friend of us, Poles.
Bill was a respected scholar. His book “The Road to Kadesh: A Historical Interpretation of the
Battle Reliefs of Sety I at Karnak” (1983) was sold out within a couple of years and a new revised
edition was published in 1990. Working at Chicago House, Bill also contributed substantially to
the Epigraphic Survey series, including volumes on “The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak”,
and to the “Reliefs and Inscriptions at the Luxor Temple” series. His last work was “Texts from the
Amarna Period in Egypt. ”

9