When he was young, his father died, and Erich was sent to the military school (Kadettenkorps) in Karlsruhe. He graduated in 1914 as a lieutenant in the German Army just as WWI started. He fought in the war with distinction, but then was seriously wounded in the fighting in Austrian Galicia in 1916. After the battle, Schmidt was found by the Russians on the battle field, and spent the next four years in a prisoner-of-war camp. In 1920, he found his way home to Germany. There he learned that his mother and three siblings died in the meantime. Then he attended Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (now
Humboldt University of Berlin). In 1923 he moved to the
U.S., and studied anthropology at
Columbia University, where he was a student of
Franz Boas. From December 1925 through January 1926, Schmidt conducted stratigraphic test excavations at Pueblo Grande and La Ciudad, two Hohokam sites that he later used for his dissertation. He was one of the pioneers of Hohokam studies. In 1927, James Henry Breasted of the Oriental Institute invited Schmidt to join the Anatolia-Hittite Expedition as an assistant archaeologist. He became co-director of the
Oriental Institute Hittite Expedition, with H.H. Von der Osten, and later on dug in sites such as
Surkh Dum-i-Luri and in
Tepe Hissar near
Damghan, in searching for ancient city
Hecatompylos, and
Rey. His most celebrated survey took place in
Persepolis (
Iran), from 1934 up to 1939. Erich Schmidt was pioneer in
aerial photography of archaeological sites, especially in
Iran. In 1935, Schmidt had to approach
Reza Shah Pahlavi directly for permission to fly over the country. After he obtained it, he made many flights and did a lot of mapping. He was married twice, in 1934, to Mary-Helen Warden (who later died), and in 1943, to Lura Florence Strawn, with whom they had two children, Richard Roderick and Erika Lura. Erich died in
Santa Barbara, California, in 1964; unfortunately, he was not able to complete many of his plans, and thus much of his excavation work remained unpublished. Some of it was later re-investigated and published by other scholars. ==Notes==