Search

George H. Forsyth (1901-1991) was an eminent archeologist, architectural, and art historian who led archeological expeditions to Angers, France, Mount Sinai, Egypt, and countries in the Near East including Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Forsyth was a professor at the University of Michigan, chairman of the History of Art Department and director of the Kelsey Museum. Ilene H. Forsyth, who continued George's publishing activities posthumously, was an art historian and professor at the University of Michigan. The collection is comprised of personal materials, teaching materials, and extensive documentation of George's personal travel and archeological expeditions to Europe and the Near East such as correspondence, field notes, and visual materials.

The George H. Forsyth papers document Forsyth's career. The collection includes personal materials, biographical information, daybooks, family photographs, teaching and lecture notes, and extensive documentation of George's personal travel and archeological expeditions to Europe and the Near East. Material related to expeditions includes field notebooks, photographs, negatives, architectural drawings, correspondence, and manuscripts of various publication activities.

George Forsyth died prior to completing the publication of his landmark drawings of Saint Catherine's Monastery (Mount Sinai, Egypt). Publication efforts were continued posthumously by his wife, Dr. Ilene H. Forsyth, an art historian and professor at the University of Michigan. Her extensive efforts to publish George's work are documented is approximately three linear feet of manuscripts, correspondence, topical files, and a catalog of drawings, 1995-1997, located in Box 9.

The Sinai Archives collection contains the negatives for black & white photographs taken of the Holy Monastery at Mount Sinai in Egypt, also known as St. Catherine's Monastery. The photographs were taken as part of a series of four expeditions between 1958 and 1965 to document the monastery and its holdings, they include details of the monastic buildings, the mosaics and frescoes, the liturgical objects, and the extensive collection of icons and manuscripts.

The Sinai Archives collection comprises a series of black & white negatives, which were taken during the expeditions to the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai, undertaken by the Universities of Michigan and Princeton with courtesies extended by the University of Alexandria. Photography was under the direction of the University of Michigan. The negatives are the product of four campaigns in 1958, 1960, 1963, and 1965. They recorded every detail of the sixth century Justiniac Church of Saint Catherine, as well as the monastic buildings, the mosaics and frescoes of the church, the monastery's liturgical objects contained in the church's treasury, and the extensive collection of icons and manuscripts. The collection is arranged into five series based on the type of the photographed material, including icons, architecture, mosaics, manuscripts, and objects.