Documentary architectural historian of the middle east. Butler was born to Edward Marchant Butler and Helen Belden Crosby (Butler). He was educated privately at the Lyons Collegiate Institute and the Berkeley School in New York, which allowed him to enter Princeton University as a sophomore, class of 1892.

Scholar of classical Greek, Roman and Near Eastern art; renowned archaeologist. Hanfmann's family migrated from Russia to Germany when was 10. In Germany he studied first at the University in Jena, and then at Munich where he studied under Ernst Buschor and Hans Diepolder. His degree was finally granted at the Friedrich Wilhelms Universität in Berlin.