William Christopher Hayes (March 21, 1903 – July 10, 1963) was an American Egyptologist.^[1] His main fields of study were history of Egyptian art and translation/interpretation of texts.^[2]

His father William C. Hayes Sr. was a British national and his mother Helen Hawthorne Maule was from Philadelphia and both parents were passionate about horses.^[3] Bill initially went to William Penn Charter School(then known as Penn Charter) and then went to the prep school st george's for 4 years, where he won the "George Gordon King medal" in advanced greek.^[3] A pupil of Sir Alan Gardiner, Hayes attended the Princeton University(in 1920) where he graduated in 1935 with a dissertation on the royal sarcophagi of the 18th Dynasty. For most of his life he was involved with the Metropolitan Museum of Art: first as a member of the museum's Egyptian Expedition (since 1926), then as an assistant curator (1936) and later as curator of the museum's Egyptian Department, from 1952 until his death^[2] occurred on July 10, 1963.^[1]
In 1956, he was involved as a consultant in the production of the film The Ten Commandments.^[4] His best-known work, The Scepter of Egypt, is still considered by many Egyptologists as one of the standard works in their field.^[2][4]

• 1961–1962. Chronology: Egypt – To End Of The Twentieth Dynasty. In The Cambridge Ancient History
• 1956. Most ancient Egypt. University of Chicago Press (as editor)
• 1953–1959. The Scepter of Egypt, a Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. part I, New York 1953; part II, New York 1959
• 1942. Daily life in Ancient Egypt. National Geographic Society
• 1935. Royal Sarcophagi of the XVIII Dynasty (dissertation)