George Francis Taylor (died 28 March 2011) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

scholar, archaeologist, historian, and

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...

. Taylor was a professor of English at the

American University in Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, au ...

from 1960 until 1970. He was a member of the

Royal Numismatic Society The Royal Numismatic Society (RNS) is a learned society and charity based in London, United Kingdom which promotes research into all branches of numismatics. Its patron was Queen Elizabeth II. Membership Foremost collectors and researchers, bo ...

; he published studies on ancient coins in various numismatic books and journals. After his return from his teaching position in Beirut, he resumed teaching at the Brighton Technical College, in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

. He is survived by his wife Norma and a daughter.

The Roman temples of Lebanon

Taylor traveled to

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

and documented little known ancient sites and temples. In 1967 he published a book called 'The Roman Temples of Lebanon: a pictorial guide'. He categorized the temples of Lebanon into three groups; Temples of

Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( ar, جبل الشيخ or جبل حرمون / ALA-LC: ''Jabal al-Shaykh'' ("Mountain of the Sheikh") or ''Jabal Haramun''; he, הַר חֶרְמוֹן, ''Har Hermon'') is a mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the ...

, Temples of the

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...

and Temples of the Lebanese coastal plain. Taylor humbly admitted that he was only an amateur archaeologist trying to unravel the ancient mysteries of Lebanon and referred to his publication as a ''"book by an amateur, for an amateur"''. This has not stopped it being used as an authoritative reference on the subject for several decades.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, George British historians British numismatists 2011 deaths Year of birth missing Webarchive template wayback links