R. A. S. Macalister

Robert Alexander Stuart McAlister (July 8, 1870 - April 26, 1950) was an Irish archaeologist. Makalister was born in Dublin, Ireland, in the family of Alexander Makalister, then professor of zoology at the University of Dublin. His father was appointed professor of anatomy at Cambridge in 1883, he was educated at Perse School, and then studied at Cambridge University. Although his earliest interest was in the archeology of Ireland, he soon showed a strong interest in biblical archeology. Together with Frederick J. Bliss, he unearthed several cities in the Shefel region in Ottoman Palestine from 1898 to 1900. Using advances in stratigraphy based on the work of Flinders Petri, they developed a chronology of the region using ceramic typology. After Bliss resigned, McAllister became excavation director for the Palestinian Research Foundation (PEF) in 1901. From 1902 to 1909, he was responsible for excavations at Gezer, in the modern state of Israel, west of Jerusalem. These were one of the first large-scale scientific archaeological excavations in the region. A very early Paleo-Hebrew calendar inscription is found in the Geser calendar. However, in most cases, Makalister’s work in biblical archeology is considered unsuccessful, due to the poor quality of his excavation technique and his crappy accounting. Since Makalister was the only professional archaeologist involved in the excavation, managing a project of such complexity was essentially an impossible task. Macalister left the field of biblical archeology in 1909 to take up the position of professor of Celtic archeology at University College Dublin, where he taught until his retirement in 1943. During this period, he worked in an ancient Irish royal place on Tara Hill. and was responsible for editing the catalog of all famous ogama inscriptions from the UK and Ireland. Many of his translations of Irish myths and legends are still widely used today. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1910 and served as their president from 1926 to 1931. He was also president of the Royal Society of Antiques of Ireland from 1924 to 1928. He is buried in the parish of the Ascension Cemetery in Cambridge with his wife Margaret A.M. McAllister.