Mark Lehner

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Dr. Mark Lehner is an American archaeologist with over thirty years' experience excavating in Egypt. His approach, as director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), is to conduct interdisciplinary archaeological investigation. Every excavated object, from buildings down to pollen spores, is examined by specialists to create an overall picture of an archaeological site. His international team currently runs the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, excavating and mapping the ancient city of the builders of the Giza pyramid complex.

Mark Lehner first went to Egypt as a student abroad in the 1970s. Intrigued by the mysteries of the 'Sleeping Prophet', Edgar Cayce, Lehner "found that [my] initial notions about the ancient civilization along the Nile could not stand up to the bedrock reality of the Giza Plateau." He turned to the scientific method of discovery, returning some years later to complete a PhD at Yale University. Lehner's 1991 dissertation was "Archaeology of an image: The Great Sphinx of Giza."

Among his other work in Egypt, Mark Lehner has produced the only scale maps of the Sphinx in existence. He spent five years surveying and mapping the famous statue built by Khafre.

Lehner's book, The Complete Pyramids (1997) is an exhaustive catalog of Egypt's many pyramid sites. Lehner has appeared in many television programs about Egypt. He is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago