1904 in archaeology

Events

• March 18 – Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1904 passed in British India.

Explorations

• Leo Frobenius makes an expedition to the Kasai region of the Belgian Congo.

Excavations

• Edward Herbert Thompson dredges artifacts from the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza.
• First formal excavations at Aphrodisias in Anatolia, by French railroad engineer Paul Augustin Gaudin, begin.
• Oseberg ship.

Finds

• Tomb of Nefertari discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli.
• Winter 1904–5 – Inscription in a form of Proto-Sinaitic script, dated to the mid-19th century BCE, discovered in Sinai by Hilda and Flinders Petrie.
• Approximate date – Broe helmet.
• Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros in Delos, Greece.
• Fragments of a stele containing the Hymn to Dictaean Zeus, Crete Greece.

Publications

• Rudolf Ernst Brünnow and Alfred von Domaszewski begin publication of Die Provincia Arabia, containing a detailed description of Petra.

Births

• January 19 – Pei Wenzhong, founding father of Chinese anthropology.
• February 11 – Alan Sorrell, English archaeological illustrator.
• May 6 – Max Mallowan, English archaeologist.

Deaths

• March – Alexander Stuart Murray, Scottish archaeologist and museum curator.
• November 20 – Luigi Palma di Cesnola, Italian American soldier, diplomat, archaeologist and museum director