Walter Burkert was born on 2 February 1931 in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. His influential scholarship combined the findings of archaeology and epigraphy with the works of poets, historians, and philosophers. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Erlangen, he lectured there from 1957 to 1965. He spent a year as Junior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC before becoming Professor of Classical Philology at the Technical University of Berlin in 1966. Burkert retired as Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Zurich in 1996.
Member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he published extensively on the balance between lore and science among the followers of Pythagoras and ritual and archaic cult survival. Notable works include Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (1972), Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (1979), Ancient Mystery Cults (1987), The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992), and Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture (2004).
