Category Archives: Archaeology

Clarence Stanley Fisher was trained as an architect at the University of Pennsylvania in his hometown of Philadelphia. He became involved in archaeology at Nippur, Iraq (the region of ancient Sumer). Later he worked with George Andrew Reisner at Giza, Egypt, and then at Samaria from 1908 to 1910. This expedition, sponsored by Harvard, was the first American excavation in Palestine. After a short time back at Giza, he excavated at Beth Shan (Beit She’an), a dig sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania.

Fisher received an invitation from the University of Chicago to work at Megiddo, a work funded by the Rockefeller family. This excavation continued from 1933 to 1939, but fisher stopped working at the site after two years because of bad health.

The Megiddo excavations were recounted by Fisher under the title The Excavation of Armageddon, a work published by the University of Chicago Press with a foreword written by James Henry Breasted. This work is available at Google Books.

From 1936 to the time of his unexpected death in 1941, Fisher served as Professor of Archaeology at the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem (now the Albright Institute).

Fisher is buried at the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Grave marker for Clarence Stanley Fisher. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The brief information I have included here is summarized from a brief article by Milton C. Fisher in Bible and Spade 6:2 (Spring 1993). I get the impression that Milton is not related to Clarence. Milton Fisher cites two comments about C. S. Fisher that I wish to quote here.

W. F. Albright described Fisher as “an archaeological genius of no mean quality.”

Nelson Glueck wrote the following at the time of his death:

“The company of his friends misses him sorely. The host of those who loved him for his goodness of heart and humility of spirit will cherish the memory of this gentle man, whose last pilgrimage was to Nazareth, and whose final resting place is in Jerusalem.”

I find it fascinating to see so many well-known names associated with Fisher when Americans and American institutions were actively working in the Middle East.