Danien, Elin C.

The Robert Burkitt Papers were collected by Elin Danien on a trip to Guatemala in 1985. Danien, the Coordinator of Public Programs at the Penn Museum, was also a student in the Ph.D.program in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania at the time of her trip. She hoped to determine if the writings and notebooks of Robert Burkitt, reportedly destroyed at his death, were indeed lost to history.

Robert Burkitt. a Harvard graduate and friend of George Byron Gordon, accompanied Gordon as his assistant on the Fourth Copan Expedition to Guatemala in 1894. Burkitt remained in Guatemala for the rest of his life while Gordon returned to the United States and in 1910 became the Director of the Free Museum of Science and Art (later the Penn Museum). Burkitt developed a unique style in studying the native Indian languages and received some recognition before accepting an informal agreement with his old friend, Gordon, to locate and ship artifacts from Guatemala to the Free Museum of Science and Art.

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