Ernst Emil Herzfeld (23 July 1879 – 20 January 1948) was a German archaeologist and Iranologist.

 1923–25 he started explorations in Persia and described many of the countries' most important ruins for the first time. In 1925 he moved to Tehran and stayed there most of the time until 1934. He was instrumental in creating a Persian law of antiquities and excavated in the Achaemenid capitals Pasargadae and Persepolis.

He left Iran at the end of 1934 for a year in London, but never returned. In 1935, he was forced to leave his position in Germany because of his Jewish descent, and became a faculty member of the New Jersey Institute for Advanced Study from 1936 to 1944. He died in Basel, Switzerland in 1948.