The archaeologist and egyptologist Grete Mostny died on December 15, 1991 at the age of 77 in Santiago de Chile. Born in Linz, Grete Mostny studied at the University of Vienna from 1933 to 1937. In December 1937 her dissertation was approved, but since she was considered a “Jew” after the “Anschluss” in March 1938, she had to leave the university without a degree.
She was able to continue her studies in Brussels and obtain a doctorate in 1939. She later continued her studies in Cairo and was finally able to emigrate to Chile. In 1939 she became an assistant at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural and rose to the head of the anthropological department in 1943. Also in numerous expeditions and excavations, she dealt with the early history and cultural anthropology of Chile. Chilean citizen from 1946, Mostny received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cuzco in 1949. She became a professor at the Universidad de Chile and was director of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History from 1964 to 1982.
In 2016 a monument to Grete Mostny was unveiled in the arcaded courtyard of the University of Vienna.
