Banks, Edgar James, 1866-1945

Edgar J. Banks was an antiquities enthusiast and itinerant archaeologist active during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire. He served as American consul in Baghdad beginning in 1898 and acquired large numbers of cuneiform tablets through the antiquities market, which he sold in small groups to museums, libraries, universities, and theological seminaries across the United States, including institutions in Utah and the American Southwest. Many tablets originated from local excavations at sites such as Telloh and other tells in central Mesopotamia, while others were obtained through dealers in Istanbul. During this period, the Ottoman government did not regulate the trade in minor antiquities. Although initially funded to excavate at Ur, Banks was denied permission to dig at major sites such as Babylon and Tell Ibrahim. In 1903, he was authorized to excavate at Bismya, the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Adab in present-day Iraq. His 1912 publication on the Bismya excavations documents both the archaeological work and administrative challenges encountered under Ottoman authority.

In 1909, Banks became a professor of Oriental languages and archaeology at the University of Toledo. After World War I, he traveled widely as a lecturer and continued to distribute cuneiform tablets to collectors and institutions. Tablets he sold to Charles W. Ames are now held by the Science Museum at the University of Minnesota, among other public and private collections in the United States. Banks is also associated with the sale of the cuneiform tablet known as Plimpton 322 to publisher George Arthur Plimpton; the tablet later entered Columbia University’s collections and is recognized for its importance to the study of Babylonian mathematics, frequently cited for its relevance to early understandings of relationships later formalized as the Pythagorean theorem. Banks was additionally involved in early motion picture ventures and undertook an expedition to Mount Ararat in search of Noah’s Ark, and he reportedly served as a consultant on biblical films in the early 1920s. He settled in Eustis, Florida, in 1921 and remained there until his death in 1945 at the age of 79. The Eustis Historical Museum maintains a permanent exhibit interpreting his life and work.