David Bourke O'Connor (5 February 1938 – 1 October 2022) was an Australian-American Egyptologist who primarily worked in the fields of Ancient Egypt and Nubia.

[1] O'Connor had a dual role at the institution, working as a lecturer and mentor to PhD students at the university, as well as exhibiting and maintaining the Ancient Egyptian collection at the Museum.

[3] The most well-travelled exhibition was of Nubian artefacts, displaying a selection of the Museum's collection at eight cities in the United States, including New York.

Abydos was an important place of worship for Ancient Egyptians to the god Osiris during the Middle Kingdom era to the Late Period.

[8] O'Connor's work at Abydos began in 1967 as part of a joint Penn-Yale Expedition, and he continued to be involved in study of the site.

[3] O'Connor's most notable student from his time at the University of Pennsylvania was archaeologist and former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.

[10] They reunited at the Abydos dig-site in 1979, where Hawass's interest in Egyptology prompted O'Connor and co-director, William Kelly Simpson, to invite him to the United States to view museum collections.

[3] Retired since 2017, O'Connor held the title of Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emeritus at New York University until his death in 2022.

More systematic work began near the end of the century, undertaken by archaeologists Émile Amélineau and Sir Flinders Petrie.

These buildings most often took the form of chapels, where bodies and inscriptions of names were kept, so spirits could witness yearly festivities at the Temple of Osiris.

[14][15] With walls reaching 12 metres tall in some parts of the complex, Shunet el-Zebib is one of the oldest mud brick buildings in the world, but, over more than 4,000 years it has collapsed in some places and is at risk of further destruction as a rising water table, wind, rain erosion, and animals digging into it for burrows have compromised its stability.

[15] Support for the project was provided by O'Connor's employer at the time, New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, as well as the World Monuments Fund and the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

[15]  Additional financing for the project was provided through the American Research Center in Egypt's EAP, EAC and AEF grants, which were funded by the USAID program.

[19] The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers fellowships to scholars in all fields to allow them to more easily engage in their research and scholarship, providing aid.