Lee Claflin Ellis Horne, a former research associate at the Penn Museum and the former editor of the Museum’s magazine Expedition, died on April 10 at home in Philadelphia from complications of stage IV breast cancer. She was 85.

Dr. Horne was born in 1936 in Jersey City, New Jersey. She grew up in northern New Jersey and graduated from Summit High School in 1954. After graduating, she attended Bryn Mawr
College and graduated in 1958 with a degree in mathematics. The same year, she married Hamill Horne. While raising their son Joseph, Dr. Horne worked part-time at Bryn Mawr College and as a docent at the Penn Museum. In 1974, the marriage ended, and Dr. Horne decided to pursue a career in archaeology.

She enrolled as a graduate student in the anthropology department at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on research in south Asia. In 1988, she received a PhD from Penn and was hired by the Penn Museum as a research associate and the editor of Expedition, the museum’s magazine. She wrote several articles in the magazine detailing her work in south Asia and Mesopotamia. A sampling of her work in the magazine can be read at https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/author/?id=Lee+Horne. Dr. Horne also assembled a “Pyramid Explorer’s Kit” that was a popular children’s item in the museum’s gift shop.

Dr. Horne traveled extensively, conducting archeological and ethnographic field work in Iran, Syria, and India that resulted in numerous publications. In 1994, Dr. Horne published her first book, Village Spaces: Settlement and Society in Northeastern Iran, with Smithsonian Institution Press. Four years later, she co-authored Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur with Richard Zettler, published by Penn Press. She also published several peer-reviewed articles about cultural transmission and ethno-archaeology. Dr. Horne retired from the Penn Museum in 2003 to pursue her hobby of painting, though she was called back several times to give lectures and tours and as a guest consultant and editor of Expedition.

In 1993, Dr. Horne married Bruce Pearson. Dr. Horne is survived by Mr. Pearson; three adult children, Joseph Horne, Brian (Jane) Pearson, and Melody (Joel) Bish; four grandsons; and her brother, Paul (Freya Grand) Ellis. Dr. Horne donated her body to Humanity Gifts Registry, a non-profit agency, for medical education.