Elizabeth Titzel Riefstahl

Mary Elizabeth Titzel Riefstahl (March 8, 1889 – September 15, 1986) was an American anthropologist and archaeologist who specialized in artwork from the Near East. She also served as a librarian and curator for the Wilbour Library of Egyptology of the Brooklyn Museum.

Early years and education Mary Elizabeth Titzel was born in Butler, Pennsylvania on March 8, 1889. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1910, In 1922 she traveled to Jordan and Palestine, and published three articles in the journal Asia: the American Magazine on the Orient based on her experiences. They had two children: Marian who was born on April 26, 1926, in New York City; and Rudolph, born in 1929 in Istanbul, who was the first American child to be granted Turkish citizenship due to recent changes in their birth citizenship laws. named for American Egyptologist Charles Edwin Wilbour. During her period as de facto curator, she published a number of articles and books for the museum.

In 1953, she served as a technical advisor for the movie The Egyptian. After returning to the Wilbour Library for another year, she requested her retirement, effective September 30, 1956. On December 7, 1955, she was given the title Associate Curator Emeritus of the Wilbour Collection in recognition for her services to the museum.

Riefstahl's retirement was shortly followed by the beginning of her employment by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. During this time, she also published her first book, Thebes in the Time of Amunhotep III. This continued until 1975, when she retired from the museum for a second time on September 22.

Selected works "Beyond Jordan I" Asia: The American Magazine on the Orient 23 (1923) 49–52, 68-71 "Beyond Jordan II" Asia: The American Magazine on the Orient 23 (1923) 105–8, 143-44 "The Too Much Promised Land" Asia: The American Magazine on the Orient 23 (1923) 256–61, 297-99 "A Tempest in a Snuff Bottle" Brooklyn Museum Quarterly 25, no. 2 (April 1938) 37-48 Toilet Articles from Ancient Egypt from the Charles Edwin Wilbour Memorial Collection and the Collection of The New York Historical Society in The Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn: The Museum. (1943) Patterned Textiles in Pharaonic Egypt Brooklyn: The Museum. (1944) "An Ancient Egyptian Hairdresser" Brooklyn Museum Bulletin 13, no. 4 (Summer 1952) 7-16 "Nemesis and the Wheel of Fate" Brooklyn Museum Bulletin 17, no. 3 (Spring 1956) 1-7 Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period 700 B.C. to A.D. 100. Edited by Elizabeth Riefstahl. Brooklyn: The Museum. (1960) Thebes in the Time of Amunhotep III Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. (1964) "A Note on Ancient Fashions: Four Early Egyptian Dresses in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston" Boston Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 68, no. 354 (1970) 244-259