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Donald P. Hansen
Donald P. Hansen died on Thursday, February 15, 2007, at the age of 75, after a yearlong battle with cancer.
A longtime resident of Cold Spring, he deeply appreciated the beauty of country life. He trained hackney ponies and enjoyed showing them all over the United States and in Canada, winning many championships. Generations of dogs and cats were loved and well cared for in his home and on his property.
Flora as well as fauna became a passion, particularly orchids, which he collected from as far away as Belize and treasured in a greenhouse. His devotion to the care of his Cold Spring home and its grounds and the delight that he took in the people who were part of his Cold Spring life, enriching it and making it possible, were obvious to all who knew him.
Professionally, he was a renowned archaeologist and a devoted and influential mentor and teacher. He became interested in the art of the ancient Near East as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, publishing. an article on the Assyrian reliefs there during his senior year. After earning a PhD from Harvard University, he worked at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
He joined the faculty of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University in 1963, becoming the Craig Hugh Smyth Professor of Fine Arts. There he trained generations of scholars, many of whom now hold prominent positions in museums and universities. A dedicated teacher, his unique combination of a keen and informed "eye" for art and an exacting methodology of fieldwork and archaeological documentation illuminated the past and inspired his students. His innate kindliness, good humor, and intelligence made it a pleasure to work with him and generations of colleagues and students benefited from his sensible advice and sympathetic discipline.
His work as a director of excavations at sites in Iraq and Egypt set the highest standards for his field; no one else could so effectively recover the details of ancient mud brick buildings from the accumulated mud of centuries. The records of his Iraq excavations are still fundamental to on-going studies of this ancient civilization; his groundbreaking work in the Egyptian Delta, an area then, and still, little explored, is equally important to scholars in that field. The continuing publication of his excavations, which he hoped to make the focus of his retirement, will be undertaken in his honor by his colleagues.
He is survived by his brother, Stanley Hansen, his nephew, Barry Hansen, his niece, Gail Hansen and their families; he will be profoundly missed by them and by his many friends, colleagues and students.
No formal services are planned. Donations in his memory may be made to the Putnam County Animal Shelter.
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