Born in
Chicago, Ward studied at the
Butler University in
Indianapolis and received his B.A. in History of religions in 1951. Then, he attained a MA in Egyptology at the
University of Chicago in 1955 and a
PhD in
Semitic languages at the
Brandeis University in 1958. He then taught in Beirut, first at the
Beirut College for Women and later, since 1963, at the
American University of Beirut. From 1986 until his death in 1996, he was a
visiting professor at
Brown University in
Providence, Rhode Island. His main areas of research included the relations between Egypt and
Levant, Egyptian-Semitic
etymology, as well as
scarabs and titles of the
Old and
Middle Kingdom of Egypt. == Sources ==