Reisner was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents were George Andrew Reisner I and Mary Elizabeth Mason. His father's parents were of German descent. Reisner gained B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University, before becoming a travelling fellow. He married Mary Putnam Bronson, with whom he had a daughter, also called Mary. In 1889, Reisner was head football coach at Purdue University, coaching for one season and compiling a record of 2–1.
Archaeology career
Upon his studies at Jebel Barkal, in Nubia he found the Nubian kings were not buried in the pyramids but outside of them. He also found the skull of a Nubian female which is in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. Reisner believed that Kerma was originally the base of an Egyptian governor and that these Egyptian rulers evolved into the independent monarchs of Kerma. He also created a list of Egyptian viceroys of Kush. He found the tomb of Queen Hetepheres I, the mother of King Khufu who built the Great Pyramid at Giza. During this time he also explored mastabas. Arthur Merton remarked in 1936 in the aftermath of the Abuwtiyuw discovery that Reisner "enjoys an unrivalled position not only as the outstanding figure in present-day Egyptology, but also as a man whose soundness of judgement and extensive general knowledge are widely conceded." In 1902 permission to excavate the Western cemetery in Giza was granted by Gaston Maspero, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. The area was divided into three sections, and chosen by lot. The 1902-1905 excavations were financed by Phoebe Apperson Hearst. The southern section was given to the Italians under Ernesto Schiaparelli, the northern strip to the Germans under Ludwig Borchardt, and the middle section to Andrew Reisner. He met Queen Marie of Romania in Giza. In Egypt, Reisner developed a new archaeological technique which became a standard in the profession, combining the British methods of Petrie, the German methods of Dorpfeld and Koldewey, his own American practicality and his skill for large-scale organization. Despite later being recognised as a mark of good practice, this technique was at the time controversial, and was criticised as being overly elaborate. In 1908, after a decade in Egypt, Reisner headed the Harvard excavation of Samaria. In 1913 Reisner was tasked with training the young archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford in excavation techniques, Crawford was later to warmly recall that Reisner was "an excavator of the first rank".
