As US Consul stationed in Istanbul, Banks leveraged an assassination attempt on the Vice-Consul in Beirut and an approaching US fleet to obtain a permit to excavate the site of Bismya (ancient Adab). He was appointed field director of the University of Chicago excavations (1903-1905), but was dismissed after being accused of looting antiquities from the site. After returning home, Banks toured the country delivering lectures on Mesopotamian archaeology. Banks acquired thousands of cuneiform tablets on the antiquities market and sold them below market value to seed college museum and teaching collections. Banks retired to Florida in 1921 with his wife Minya de M. Banks, where he invested in citrus groves and served as a movie consultant to Cecil B. DeMille. Banks developed a relationship with Prof. Edwin Grover, who purchased a number of cuneiform tablets for Rollins. A late frost in 1935 destroyed the entirety of the Banks’ citrus crop. In the midst of these financial troubles, the family sent their daughter, Daphne Banks, to Rollins. Unable to afford tuition, Daphne took out a loan from the college in order to continue her studies, repayment of which the college never pursued. After Edgar Banks’ death, Minya de M. Banks developed a friendship with Rollins’ President Hugh McKean. In 1954, she donated her husband’s collection of antiquities to the Baker Museum at Rollins College.