September 13, 1934, after falling from the 8th floor fire escape of the Chicago Beach Hotel in Chicago, where he lived. He had been recovering from the removal of a tumor at the time, but his widow claimed he was in good spirits, and the Coroner's jury returned an undetermined verdict. He bequeathed his personal library and correspondence, including more than 7,000 volumes in Chinese, to the Field Museum library. From "Lasting Impressions: Chinese Rubbings from the Field Museum" Brochure (The Field Museum of Chicago): When Berthold Laufer came to The Field Museum in 1908, he was one of the few scholars in America who could speak and write the Chinese language fluently. He made the study of the Chinese language and culture his life's work. "I have come to love the land and the people," he once wrote. "I feel myself to be better and healthier as a Chinese than as a European." As Curator of Asian Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the Field, he made two major expeditions to China in 1908 and 1923, and his acquisitions form the core of the Museum's Chinese collections. In addition to his studies in Chinese culture as such, Laufer used his knowledge of ancient Chinese writings to shed light on ancient Iran. Very few writings have survived from ancient Iran. Surviving ancient Chinese writings contain valuable information about ancient Iran, which Laufer was the first to study systematically, and which he published as Sino-Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products (1919). In March 2020 the 385 wax cylinders Laufer recorded in Shanghai and Beijing in 1901 and 1902—comprising the earliest sound recordings of Chinese music—were made available to the public by the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music.link List of works Written in English 1899 Ethnological work on the island of Sakhalin 1899 Petroglyphs on the Amoor 1900 Preliminary notes on explorations among the Amoor tribes 1902 The decorative art of the Amur tribes, Volume 7, Part 1 1905 Historical jottings on amber in Asia 1906 The Bird-Chariot in China and Europe 1907 A Plea for the Study of the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences 1907 A theory of the origin of Chinese writing 1907 Note on the introduction of the groundnut into China 1907 The introduction of maize into eastern Asia 1907