Richard F. Liebhart received a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988. He taught ancient art and archaeology at UNC and at Elon University until retiring from teaching in 2016. He studied at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and worked on excavations in the Athenian Agora (1980–1981) and at ancient Corinth (1981). Since 1990, he has worked and published primarily on the architecture, environment, and stabilization of the tomb chamber of Tumulus MM at Gordion in Turkey, the capital of the Phrygians and the historical King Midas. The tomb dates to ca. 740 BCE, making it the oldest standing wooden building in the world.
