Dr. James A. Harrell was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended the California State University at Fullerton, with his junior year spent at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and received his BA in Earth Science (with a minor in Archaeology) in 1971. He subsequently obtained a MS in Geology in 1976 from the University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in Geology in 1983 from the University of Cincinnati.

Prof. Harrell is currently Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio, USA. He retired from this university in 2009 after 30 years of teaching geology. James also serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the Freeman Institute Foundation, which is in the process of developing the Rosetta Universe initiative.

For the past 37 years, he has been studying the ancient mines and quarries in Egypt and northern Sudan, and has so far made 50 trips to these countries in support of this work. He has also done fieldwork on ancient quarries in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Prof. Harrell recently published two books based on his research in archaeological geology: “Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones”(Oxford: Archaeopress; 2024); and “Archaeological Stones and Their Macroscopic Identification” (Oxford: Archaeopress; 2025).