Jeanny Vorys Canby (July 14, 1929 – November 18, 2007) was an American archaeologist and scholar of the ancient Near East.
[4] Canby worked as a curator at the Ancient Near East wing of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore for seventeen years.
Canby found that several parts of the stele had remained unincorporated, including an adult hand on the shoulder of a god, with tiny feet in its lap.
By removing the plaster that filled missing parts of the stele, and by putting back pieces she found in the museum's storerooms, she was able to determine that the feet belonged not to a baby, but a woman embracing the deity.
Recognising it as stolen from the Penn Museum, she reported the find to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who traced it back to a local garage sale.