Sara Bisel (1932–1996)

Sara Bisel, née Clark, was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with a bachelor's degree in nutrition and biochemistry. She married Harry Bisel, a medical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic, and the couple lived in Rochester, Minnesota after 1963.

She earned a master's degree in classical studies from the University of Minnesota, with a specialization in Greek archaeology, and then a PhD in physical anthropology. She was awarded a fellowship by the Smithsonian Institution in 1977 and conducted independent research funded by the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Society from 1981 to 1988. Dr. Bisel was both a physical (or forensic) anthropologist and a classical archaeologist who worked on various excavation sites throughout Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Italy.
She played a prominent role in early scientific research at Herculaneum, the ancient Roman town on the Mediterranean destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Her pioneering work on the chemical and physical analysis of skeletons yielded new insights into the nutrition and health of ancient populations. The author of numerous articles published in scholarly and professional journals, she taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Maryland, and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. She also wrote an award-winning children’s book, The Secrets of Vesuvius: Exploring the Mysteries of an Ancient Buried City (1990), which was published in several languages. Dr. Bisel died at age 53 in 1996.