George Byron Gordon

George Byron Gordon (1870–1927) was a Canadian-American archaeologist, who graduated from Harvard University in 1894. While studying at Harvard, he participated in excavations at Copan in Honduras under the direction of John G. Owens in 1891. Following Owens’ death in the field, Gordon took command of the Copan expeditions from 1894 to 1895 and in 1900–1901. He spent the remainder of his twenty-four year employment at the University of Pennsylvania collecting antiquities for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s North American collections, and he remains one of the museum's largest contributors of North American artifacts.

Employment history

In 1903, Gordon was named Assistant Curator of the Section of General Ethnology at the Free Museum of Science and Art at the University of Pennsylvania. 1915 – American Anthropological Association Council member 1917 – Vice President and Council member of the American Anthropological Association 1926 – Received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Selected books In the Alaskan Wilderness. (George B. Gordon). 1917. John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rambles in Old London (George Byron Gordon). 1924. George W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Selected papers Prehistoric Ruins of Copan, Honduras. (George B. Gordon). 1896. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Papers 1(1). Researches in the Uloa Valley, Honduras. (George B. Gordon). 1898. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Papers 1(4). Caverns of Copan, Honduras. (George B. Gordon). 1898. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Papers 1(5). The Ruined City of Copan. (George Byron Gordon). 1899. Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 31(1):39–50. On the Interpretation of a Certain Group of Sculptures at Copan. (George Byron Gordon). 1902. American Anthropologist 4(1):130–143. On the Use of Zero and Twenty in the Maya Time System. (George Byron Gordon). 1902. American Anthropologist 4(2):237–275. Examples of Maya Pottery in the Museum and in Other Collections. (George B. Gordon and John A. Mason). 1925–1943. Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.