The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Anthropology,
#2701
Orazio Marucchi
1852 - 1931 (79 years)
Orazio Marucchi was an Italian archaeologist and author of the Manual of Christian Archaeology. He served as Professor of Christian Archaeology at the University of Rome and director of the Christian and Egyptian museums at the Vatican Museums. He was also a member of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology and was a scrittore of the Vatican Library.
Go to Profile#2702
Karl Lehrs
1802 - 1878 (76 years)
Karl Ludwig Lehrs , was a German classical scholar. Born at Königsberg, he was Jewish, but in 1822 he converted to Christianity. In 1845 he was appointed professor of ancient Greek philology at Königsberg University, a post he held until his death.
Go to Profile#2703
Adolf Schöll
1805 - 1882 (77 years)
Gustav Adolf Schöll was a German art historian, archaeologist and classical philologist. Biography He studied at the universities of Tübingen and Göttingen, obtaining his habilitation at Berlin in 1833. In June 1837 he was appointed professor of rhetoric, classical philology, aesthetics and art history at the University of Dorpat. In 1839/40, with Karl Otfried Müller, he participated in a study trip to Italy and Greece.
Go to Profile#2704
Emily James Smith Putnam
1865 - 1944 (79 years)
Emily James Smith Putnam was an American classical scholar, author and educator. Biography She was the daughter of Justice James C. Smith. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1889 and studied at Girton College, Cambridge University, in 1889–90.
Go to Profile#2705
James Robinson Boise
1815 - 1895 (80 years)
James Robinson Boise was an American classicist. He was the author of several Greek text books. Biography He graduated from Brown University in 1840, and served there as tutor of Latin and Greek and as a professor of Greek until 1850. In 1852, he became professor of Greek language and literature in the University of Michigan. In 1868, he was called to the same chair in the old University of Chicago. In 1877, he became professor of New Testament Interpretation in the Baptist Union Theological Seminary. On the establishment of the new University of Chicago, he was made professor emeritus of New Testament Greek.
Go to Profile#2706
Rudolf Westphal
1826 - 1892 (66 years)
Rudolf Westphal was a German classical scholar. Life Westphal was born at Obernkirchen in Schaumburg. He studied at Marburg and Tübingen, and was professor at Breslau and Moscow . He subsequently lived at Bückeburg, and died at Stadthagen in Schaumburg-Lippe on 10 July 1892. Westphal devoted his life in translating and interpreting the works of Aristoxenus. He then applied Greek theories of poetic meter to eighteenth- and nineteenth century music.
Go to Profile#2707
Alexandre Moret
1868 - 1938 (70 years)
Alexandre Moret was a French Egyptologist. Life From 1906 to 1923 Moret was curator of the Musée Guimet. In 1918 Moret succeeded Émile Amélineau as Director of Studies for the Religions of Egypt within the Fifth Section of the École pratique des hautes études, devoted to religious science.
Go to Profile#2708
Arthur Ramos
1903 - 1949 (46 years)
Arthur Ramos de Araujo Pereira was a psychiatrist, professor, and psychologist who was a critical voice in the adoption of psychoanalysis in Brazil. Ramos challenged the White supremacist and eugenic ideologies that Brazilian psychiatrists were adopting in the first half of the 20th century and instead suggested the use of Freudian psychoanalysis to bridge the tensions between Whiteness and Blackness in Brazil.
Go to Profile#2709
George Johnston Allman
1824 - 1904 (80 years)
George Johnston Allman was an Irish professor, mathematician, classical scholar, and historian of ancient Greek mathematics. His fame rests mainly upon his authorship of Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid, first published in Dublin in 1889, and republished several times subsequently.
Go to Profile#2710
Franz Studniczka
1860 - 1929 (69 years)
Franz Studniczka was a German professor of classical archaeology born in Jasło, Galicia. He studied classical archaeology in Vienna as a pupil of Otto Benndorf . In 1887 he received his habilitation in Vienna, and in 1889 became the Chair of Classical Archaeology at the University of Freiburg.
Go to Profile#2711
Talfourd Ely
1838 - Present (188 years)
Talfourd Ely FSA was a British archaeologist, classicist, and author of several books, notably A Manual of Archaeology and Roman Hayling. Career Talfourd Ely contributed many articles on archaeology to learned journals and taught Latin and other classical languages at University College London.
Go to Profile#2712
Henry Potonié
1857 - 1913 (56 years)
Henry Potonié was a German botanist and paleobotanist, known for his studies of coal formation. Potonié was born in Berlin. He studied botany at the University of Berlin, and from 1880 served as a research assistant in the botanical garden at Berlin. In 1885 he became associated with the Prussian Geological Survey, and from that time, devoted most of his time to paleobotanical research. In 1891 he was appointed professor of paleobotany at the Mining Academy in Berlin, then around 1901, became a professor of paleobotany and geology at the university.
Go to Profile#2713
Alfred Maximilien Bonnet
1841 - 1917 (76 years)
Alfred Maximilien Bonnet was a German Latinist classical scholar. He studied at Bonn University, then was a lecturer at Lausanne 1866–74 and in Paris 1874–81, then lecturer and from 1890 professor at the University of Montpellier. He made the first modern editions of various New Testament Apocrypha.
Go to Profile#2714
Robert Wood
1717 - 1771 (54 years)
Robert Wood was an Irish-British traveller, classical scholar, civil servant and politician. He was the son of the Revd James Wood of Summerhill, County Meath and educated at Glasgow University and the Middle Temple . His father was a patron of Hercules Rowley of Summerhill House.
Go to Profile#2715
Curt Wachsmuth
1837 - 1905 (68 years)
Curt Wachsmuth was a German historian and classical philologist. He was a son-in-law to philologist Friedrich Ritschl. Academic biography From 1856 to 1860 he studied at the universities of Jena and Bonn, where he later received his habilitation in classical philology and ancient history. In 1864 he became a professor in ancient history at the University of Marburg, followed by professorships in classical philology at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg . From 1885 to 1905 he was a professor of classical philology and ancient history at the University of Leipzig. In 1897/98 he serve...
Go to Profile#2716
Mikhail Artamonov
1898 - 1972 (74 years)
Mikhail Illarionovich Artamonov was a Soviet and Russian historian and archeologist, who came to be recognized as the founding father of modern Khazar studies. Biography Artamonov was born into a peasant family in Tver Governorate. He moved to Saint Petersburg when he was nine years old to pursue secondary education, including studying painting under Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and art history under Nikolai Sychov, as well as archaeology. He was an active participant in the Russian Revolution.
Go to Profile#2717
Samuel Wide
1861 - 1918 (57 years)
Samuel Karl Anders Wide was a Swedish classical archaeologist, ancient historian and philologist. Biography Wide was born at Stora Tuna in Kopparberg County, Sweden. Wide became a student at Uppsala University in 1879. In 1888 he received his PhD in Greek language and literature from Uppsala University.
Go to Profile#2718
Konrad Theodor Preuss
1869 - 1938 (69 years)
Konrad Theodor Preuss was a German ethnologist. He was chairman of the Lithuanian Literary Society . Preuss was born in Preußisch-Eylau. After studying at the Albertina in Königsberg in Prussia and at Frederick William's University of Berlin he joined the Ethnological Museum of Berlin in 1895, advancing to director of the Central and North American department in 1920, before retiring in 1934. He also became a member of the faculty of the University of Berlin and died in Berlin.
Go to Profile#2719
Karl Friedrich Hermann
1804 - 1855 (51 years)
Karl Friedrich Hermann was a German classical scholar and antiquary. Biography He was born at Frankfurt-am-Main. Having studied philosophy at the universities of Heidelberg and Leipzig , he went on a tour of Italy; on his return from which he lectured as privatdozent in Heidelberg. In 1832 he was appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Marburg, and in 1833 received the additional offices of second librarian at the university, and director of the philological seminary. In 1842 he transferred to Göttingen as the chair of philology and archaeology, vacant by the death of Otfried Müller.
Go to Profile#2720
Oleh Olzhych
1907 - 1944 (37 years)
Oleh Oleksandrovych Kandyba , better known by the pen name of Oleh Olzhych , was a Ukrainian poet and political activist. He was forced to emigrate from Ukraine in 1923 due to occupation by the Soviet Russia and lived in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He graduated in 1929 from Charles University with a degree in archaeology. In 1929 he joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and became head of their cultural and educational branch.
Go to Profile#2721
James Luce Kingsley
1778 - 1852 (74 years)
James Luce Kingsley was an American classical and biblical scholar. Biography Born in Windham, Connecticut, Kingsley was educated at Williams and Yale, where he was graduated in 1799. He afterward taught for two years, first in Wethersfield, Connecticut and then in Windham, and in 1801 became a tutor at Yale. In 1805 he was appointed to the newly established professorship of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin in there. Kingsley was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1825. He was relieved of a part of his duties in 1831, when a separate professorship of Greek was establishe...
Go to Profile#2722
Oscar Almgren
1869 - 1945 (76 years)
Oscar Almgren was a Swedish archaeologist specializing in prehistoric archaeology. He published a dissertation on Nordic types of brooches in 1897. He was also the father of Bertil Almgren, who followed in his father's footsteps in also becoming a professor of Scandinavian and Comparative Archaeology at Uppsala University.
Go to Profile#2723
Richard Schöne
1840 - 1922 (82 years)
Richard Schöne was a German archaeologist and classical philologist. He studied classical philology and archaeology at the University of Leipzig, receiving his doctorate in 1861 with a dissertation on Plato's Protagoras. He then studied painting under Friedrich Preller the Elder, and from 1864 conducted archaeological research in Italy, during which time, he visited numerous museums and libraries, and participated in excavations at Pompeii. In Rome, he worked alongside Otto Benndorf and Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz.
Go to Profile#2724
Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann
1775 - 1839 (64 years)
Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann was a German philosopher and anthropologist. Biography Windischmann attended the Gymnasium in Mainz, and in 1772 took the course in philosophy at the university there. He continued this course at Würzburg, where he also studied the natural sciences and medicine until 1796. After a year at Vienna he settled in 1797 as a practising physician at Mainz, where he also gave medical lectures. In 1801 the Elector of Mainz, Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, summoned him to Aschaffenburg as court physician.
Go to Profile#2725
Andreas Rumpf
1890 - 1966 (76 years)
Andreas Rumpf was a German classical archaeologist born in Potsdam. He was a specialist of ancient Greek and Roman art, in particular, vase painting and Greek wall painting. He was the son of painter Fritz Rumpf .
Go to Profile#2726
Daniel Schlumberger
1904 - 1972 (68 years)
Daniel Théodore Schlumberger was a French archaeologist and Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Strasbourg and later Princeton University. Biography After having been invited by Khan Nasher in the 1960s, he conducted fieldwork at Ay Khanum in Afghanistan as Director of the Délégation Archéologique Française, discovering ruins and artifacts of the Hellenistic period. His written works were included posthumously in The Cambridge History of Iran .
Go to Profile#2727
Paul Maas
1880 - 1964 (84 years)
Paul Maas was a German scholar who, along with Karl Lachmann, founded the field of textual criticism. He studied classical philology at the universities of Berlin and Munich, receiving his doctorate in 1903. In 1910 he obtained his habilitation and in 1920 became a full professor at Berlin. In 1930 he was appointed chair of classical philology at the University of Königsberg. In 1934 he was forced into retirement by the Nazi government due to his Jewish ancestry, and in 1939 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he taught classes at Oxford University. After his death, he was buried at Wolverco...
Go to Profile#2728
Jiří Polívka
1858 - 1933 (75 years)
Jiří Polívka was a Czech linguist, slavist, literary historian and folklorist. He was a disciple of Jan Gebauer. In 1895 he was appointed professor at Charles University in Prague. He became a corresponding member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences . He was a supporter of Theodor Benfey’s migration theory. His major work was the collection Slavic Tales and studies about Slavic dialectology.
Go to Profile#2729
John E. Stambaugh
1939 - 1990 (51 years)
John Evan Stambaugh was an American classical scholar and professor at Williams College. Stambaugh was educated at Trinity College and then at Princeton University, earning a Ph.D. in 1967. Stambaugh taught at Williams from 1965 until 1990 and was a specialist in the field of Greco-Roman religion as well as early Christianity. In addition to teaching at Williams, Stambaugh was a fellow of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. and a faculty and managing committee member and chair of the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, Italy.
Go to Profile#2730
Ella Kivikoski
1901 - 1990 (89 years)
Ella Margareta Kivikoski was the first Finnish female to earn a doctorate in archaeology in Finland. In 1931, she studied at the Baltic Institute in Stockholm and developed a scholarly working relationship with the Estonian archaeologist Harri Moora. She was a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Helsinki from 1948 until 1969, specializing in both Finnish and Nordic archaeology. Her specialty was the Finnish Iron Age.
Go to Profile#2731
Jan Czekanowski
1882 - 1965 (83 years)
Jan Czekanowski was a Polish anthropologist, statistician, ethnographer, traveller, and linguist. His scientific contributions include introducing his system of racial classification and founding the field of computational linguistics.
Go to Profile#2732
Sverre Marstrander
1910 - 1986 (76 years)
Sverre Marstrander was a Norwegian professor in archaeology. Marstrander was born in Oslo, Norway. He earned his Magister degree in classical archaeology at the University of Oslo in 1937. He worked with the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters at Trondheim . Marstrander became a professor in Nordic archaeology at the University of Oslo in 1968. In that same year he was appointed as the manager of the University of Oslo Museum of National Antiquities and was in the position until 1980. His most important studies were in the research of Norwegian Bronze Age rock carvings, which showed in his dr.philos.
Go to Profile#2733
Ramaprasad Chanda
1873 - 1942 (69 years)
Ramaprasad Chanda was an Indian anthropologist, historian and archaeologist from Bengal. A pioneer in his field in South Asia, Chanda's lasting legacy is the Varendra Research Museum, he established in Rajshahi , a leading institute for research on the history of Bengal. He was the first head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Calcutta from 1920- 1921. He was also a professional archaeologist and worked in the Archaeological Survey of India. Chanda was one of the founders the Indian Anthropological Institute and was its president during 1938–1942. He represented India in the first International Congress of Anthropology held in London in 1934.
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Clairève Grandjouan
1929 - 1982 (53 years)
Clairève or Claireve Grandjouan was a French-born American archaeologist. She had a B.A. and Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College. After working on excavations in Athens, she became General Secretary of the Archaeological Institute of America and editor of its Bulletin, while teaching at New York University . She then taught at Hunter College from 1968, becoming chairman of classical and Oriental studies in 1968 and full professor in 1981.
Go to Profile#2735
Gero von Merhart
1886 - 1959 (73 years)
Gero Merhart von Bernegg was a German archaeologist. Although he worked at the same time when German nationalism and Nazi archaeology was dominant in Germany, he was not a "Nazi archaeologist". He came into conflict with Hans Reinerth.
Go to Profile#2736
Shakir Mustafa Salim
1919 - 1985 (66 years)
Shakir Mustafa Salim was an Iraqi social anthropologist who taught in the Department of Sociology at Baghdad University. He compiled A Dictionary of Anthropology: English-Arabic . Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta Salim is best known for his groundbreaking ethnographic work, Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta, submitted as his doctoral thesis in University College, London , first published in Arabic in Baghdad in two volumes , and subsequently published in English as number 23 in the series London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology . This was an anthropological repor...
Go to Profile#2737
L. P. Wenham
1911 - 1990 (79 years)
Leslie Peter Wenham FSA was a British archaeologist, historian, and professor who excavated in York, on Hadrian's Wall and Malton. He was the first to produce a comprehensive report of a Romano-British Cemetery.
Go to Profile#2738
Ernst Herzfeld
1879 - 1948 (69 years)
Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German archaeologist and Iranologist. Life Herzfeld was born in Celle, Province of Hanover. He studied architecture in Munich and Berlin, while also taking classes in Assyriology, ancient history and art history.
Go to Profile#2739
Konrad Jażdżewski
1908 - 1985 (77 years)
Konrad Jażdżewski was a Polish professor of archeology, doctor honoris causa at the University of Łódź. He was the first to conduct excavations at Brześć Kujawski. Publications JAZDZEWSKI, KONRAD. Poland. 240 pp. with 77 photos, 27 line drawings, 3 maps, & 3 tables, 8vo, cloth. New York, Praeger, 1965. Ancient People and Places Series.Konrad Jażdżewski, Urgeschichte Mitteleuropas .Archaeological Research on course of the new investments - Interstate Highways A-1 and A-2, by foundation of Konrad Jażdżewski Institute of archeology and Anthropology
Go to Profile#2740
Dorothy Lamb
1887 - 1967 (80 years)
Lady Brooke Nicholson, , better known by her maiden name Dorothy Lamb, was a British archaeologist and writer known for her catalogue of terracotta in the Acropolis Museum, Athens and her work in Mediterranean field archaeology.
Go to Profile#2741
Isabelle Raubitschek
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
Isabelle Kelly Raubitschek was an American art historian, archaeologist, and professor of art at Stanford University. Biography Raubitschek was born in Boston, and was the oldest of three children. She began to study foreign languages as a child, eventually becoming fluent in Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Latin, Italian, French and German. She met and studied with the art historian, Margarete Bieber, when she attended Barnard College in 1935. While at Barnard, she received the Lucille Pulitzer scholarship, which provided finances for four full years of study. She continued her graduate education at Columbia University and in 1936 went to the Institute of Art and Archaeology at Sorbonne.
Go to Profile#2742
Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz
1839 - 1911 (72 years)
Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz was a German archeologist. He has been called the founder of modern iconology . He served as director of the collection of antique sculpture and vases at the Berlin Museum and also as the director of the antiquarium of the Berlin Museum . Kekulé was the nephew of the organic chemist August Kekulé.
Go to Profile#2743
Santo Mazzarino
1916 - 1987 (71 years)
Santo Mazzarino was an Italian historian considered to be a leading 20th-century historian of ancient Rome. He was a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. Mazzarino was born in Catania. As a scholar and faculty member of the University of Catania and University of Rome La Sapienza, Mazzarino was viewed as one of Italy's leading historians. His influential book La fine del mondo antico examined the death of Rome as a result of decadence. The book was widely read among non-specialists as well and has been translated into several languages. Mazzarino's primary historical contributions covered sub...
Go to Profile#2744
Hans Schleif
1902 - 1945 (43 years)
Hans Philipp Oswald Schleif was a German architect, architectural and classical archaeologist and member of the SS , last occupying the rank of Standartenführer . He was a member of the Nazi Party since 1937, with membership number 5,380,876.
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Emanuel Löwy
1857 - 1938 (81 years)
Emanuel Löwy, or Emanuel Loewy was a classical archaeologist and theorist who employed the methodology of universal psychological sources of form in his work. Löwy was influenced by the concept of "das Gedächtnisbild" by Ernst Brücke. Löwy was also a friend of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Among his academic specialties was the art of ancient Greek vase painting.
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André Godard
1881 - 1965 (84 years)
André Godard was an archaeologist, architect and historian of French and Middle Eastern Art. He served as the director of the Iranian Archeological Service for many years. Life Godard was born in Chaumont. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris, he studied Middle Eastern archaeology, particularly that of Iran, and later became known for designing the National Museum of Iran, where he was appointed inaugural director in 1936. He was also instrumental in the design of Tehran University campus.
Go to Profile#2747
Jotham Johnson
1905 - 1967 (62 years)
Jotham Johnson was an American classical archaeologist. He was educated at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania where he received his doctorate in 1931. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh and then joined the faculty of New York University. He was the chairman of classics at the time of his death from an apparent heart attack.
Go to Profile#2748
Wilhelmina van Ingen Elarth
1905 - 1969 (64 years)
Wilhelmina van Ingen Elarth was an archaeologist and art history and classical studies professor. She studied at Vassar and received her doctorate at Radcliffe. In addition to her research contributions to the classics, she also bridged her interest to contemporary art and architecture. Her grandfather was Henry van Ingen.
Go to Profile#2749
Otto Reche
1879 - 1966 (87 years)
Otto Carl Reche was a German anthropologist and professor from Glatz , Prussian Silesia. He was active in researching whether there was a correlation between blood types and race. During the Second World War he openly advocated the genocide of ethnic Poles. Once a member of the Nazi Party, he remained active in anthropological issues following the downfall of Nazi Germany.
Go to Profile#2750
Adolf Ellegard Jensen
1899 - 1965 (66 years)
Adolf Ellegard Jensen was one of the most important German ethnologists of the first half of the 20th century. Jensen's main research interests were myth, ritual and cult. He furthered the theory of Cultural Morphology founded by Leo Frobenius. Jensen is mostly known for his research on religious sacrifice that led him to the introduction of the concept of Dema Deity. His best-known work is 'Myth and Cult Among Primitive Peoples', published in 1951.
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