Karen Frifelt (15 September 1925 — 6 December 2012) was a Danish archaeologist and librarian. Frifelt was a pioneer of Arabian Gulf Archaeology. In 1959 she was the first woman to participate in Peter Glob’s Archaeological expedition to Bahrain.[1] Later she directed the expedition's field operation in Abu Dhabi from 1966 becoming the first female archaeologist to work in the future UAE, and most notably in 1972 Frifelt became the first archaeologist to lead an expedition into the Sultanat of Oman.[2] In Abu Dhabi she was for years in charge of Moesgaard Museum's excavations at the now UNSCO world heritage site of Hili. During a meeting between Frifelt and the ruler and founding father of the United Arabi Emirates Sheikh Zayed al Nahyan the latter expressed admiration for Karan Frifelt's courage. Zayed commended how Frifelt as a female had left her own country to travel to an unknown and distant place such as Abu Dhabi to explore its prehistory. Zayed told Karen he wished women of his nation would someday display the same kind of enterprise.
In Oman the 1972 expedition led by Frifelt discovered the archaeological landscapes of Bat later also inscribed as a UNSCO world heritage site. Frifelt surveyed and excavated in Oman in the years 1972–1978, 1985–1986, and 1989.
In 2004 Soren Blau from the University of Adelaide, Australia, published a biographical article in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, that highlighted the pioneering work of Karen Frifelt and her legendary female colleague Beatrice de Cardi.[2]
Frifelt was the daughter of Danish writer, and a first cousin of Bertel Haarder a member of the Danish parliament and former Minister of Culture. She was born in Ölgod, West Jutland, and lived for many years and until the time of her death near Moesgaard Museum in the Aarhus suburb of Höjbjerg. Frifelt never married and did not have children. In 1942 as a high school student in Tarm, Karen Frifelt won a national writing competition by J. H. Schultz publishers among 36,000 other students by writing a historic essay.[3] In 1944 she enrolled at Aarhus University. Before 1959 Frifelt traveled to Yugoslavia and Turkey to visit ongoing excavations.[4] She spent four field seasons in Anatolia, visiting and working at Hittite period excavation sites. and conducted a stay at the UN Library in New York, and travelled to Mexico to study ancient cultures. She obtained a Mag.art.(magister artium) degree in 1961.[5] In 1965 Frifelt translated[6] Sir Mortimer Wheeler's 1959 book Early India and Pakistan: To Ashoka into Danish.[7]
In the 1970s together with then student Jens Vellev and others, Frifelt directed new excavations in the United Arab Emirates.[8] In 1970 she contributed to Abu Dhabi's pavilion at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, Japan. Abu Dhabi's pavilion featured a presentation of the Danish archaeological expedition's recent discoveries from Umm an-Nar Island and the Al Ain Oasis. On that occasion the emirate presented Frifelt with the gold pin and medal – Progress and Harmony for Mankind - “Speed of Progress” for her contributions.Later in life Frifelt was employed at Moesgaard Museum's Oriental Department and at the Royal Library - Aarhus. During her time in the Oriental department, she published numerous scientific papers and books including two volumes on the UNESCO world heritage site at the Umm an-Nar island excavations in Abu Dhabi,[9] [10] and a book on Islamic Remains in Bahrain.[11] For years Frifelt worked closely with T. G. Bibby organizing the records and finds of Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University's Arabian Gulf expeditions.