Dr. Edgar J. Banks

Born May 23, 1866 in Sunderland, Massachusetts, Dr. Edgar J. Banks was educated at Amherst College and Harvard, received a Ph.D. from the University of Breslau in Archeology and Semitic Studies, and became a prolific author and writer. He was appointed American Consul to Bagdad and served as private secretary to the U.S. Ambassador, John I. Leishman, in Turkey. He organized and led an archaeological expedition of the University of Chicago to Bismya in southern Mesopotamia, where he discovered thousands of cuneiform tablets and one of the most famous and oldest Sumerian statues of the third millennium B.C. He became the first American to climb the summits of Mount Ararat in search of Noah’s ark and one of a few westerners to cross the Arabian Desert alone on a camel. In 1914 he married Minja (Marija Amalya Beata) de Miksic, a Croatian “princess,” and they had two children, Bobby (Edgar de Miksic) and Daphne. A noted lecturer, he was invited by Edgar L. Ferran in 1913 to present Biblical Archeology talks at the First Presbyterian Church of Eustis. For health reasons, he moved his family to Eustis after working as a movie consultant for Cecil B. Demille in Hollywood, founded Seminole Films, Inc., and designed and built a Mediterranean-style mansion on a citrus grove overlooking Lake Dalhousie, where he wrote and lived until his death on May 4, 1945.

Eustis, Florida · United States