The Fred Winter Collection

Halikarnassos, blazon on walls of Castle of St Peter (Professor Fred Winter, 1957)

The Beginning of Archaeological Research in the Cyclades

Formal archaeological research in the Cycladic islands goes back to the latter 19^th century. Before that some of the local inhabitants of the islands, often the teachers or doctors, from time to time recorded as well as collected the antiquities that were visible. The most frequently identified materials were fragments of ancient inscriptions or sculpture. The discovery of Early Bronze Age tombs with marble “Cycladic” figurines and statuettes, vessels and other objects in the 1880s propelled further “private” or illegal digging as well as the first systematic excavations. The investigations of Christos Tsountas at several cemeteries in the 1890s and the work of the British School at Athens brought to light this “Cycladic civilization” which had been first suggested by Theodore Bent in 1885.

Many of the individuals who were pioneers in the early research relating to the Cycladic cultures are seldom mentioned in the modern scholarship. One of these was Klon Stephanos (1854-1915) from the island Kea. In 1873 as a medical student at the University of Athens he recorded the inscriptions on Syros where he had grown up as well as excavated tombs at the settlement of Halandriani. This research was done under the sponsorship the Archaeological Society of Athens. He gave up medicine and went to Paris to study anthropology. Returning to Athens he was one of the founders in 1886 and the first director of the Anthropological Museum of the University of Athens. Later he returned to archaeology and on the island of Naxos excavated Early Cycladic tombs from 1903 through 1910. The finds from these excavations are on display in the Cycladic Room of the National Archaeological Museum.

On Monday, May 25^th Dr. Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki, Director Emertia of the Prehistoric Collection of the National Archaeological Museum will give a lecture in Greek entitled «Οι απαρχές της Κυκλαδικής Αρχαιολογίας και ο Κλών Στέφανος, ιατρός, ανθρωπολόγος και ανασκαφέας της Σύρου και της Νάξου». In her lecture she will explore the life and the professional work as an ethnographer and anthropologist of this multi-faceted and multi-dimensional individual who opened new horizons to this fledgling field of “Cycladic archaeology”.

The lecture, at 18:30, will be at the Historical Archive at Psaromylongou 22 on the cusp of the Kerameikos and Psyrii Districts. This is the last lecture of the 2014/2015 Lecture Program of the Συλλογος Φιλων Του Ιστορικου Αρχειου Της Αρχαιολογικης Υπηρεσιας.

The Board of Directors of the Syllogos Filon has started to craft the 2015/2016 Lecture Program. Suggestions are welcome for possible lecture topics relating to the history of archaeology, Greek and foreign archaeologists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and archaeological and conservations issues based primarily on archival research, especially in the holdings of the Historical Archive. One can self-nominate as well. Established scholars, advanced graduate students, and independent researchers are invited to submit a lecture proposal for consideration. For more information and suggestions please write to: drupp@brocku.ca.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Iasos, island site, ashlar masonry with headers and (later?) mortar backing (Professor Fred Winter, 1957)

The Fred Winter Collection

Didyma, “maiander-ceiling” of stairway to roof on S side of pronaos (Professor Fred Winter, 1957)

The CIG Annual Open Meeting; Hominids in the Cyclades; Welcome Christina; Where did the BM get its Greek Antiquities?

The lovely month of May brings many wonderful things, and one of them is the Annual Open Meeting of the Institute. On Wednesday, May 13^th at 7:00 PM at the Italian Archaeological School of Athens I will review the many activities and accomplishments of the Institute since last May and provide an overview of the results of the archaeological fieldwork and study conducted in the summer of 2014 by projects carried out under the Institute’s aegis with permits from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport.

Each year a noted Canadian researcher is invited to give a lecture on some aspect of her/his current work. This year Professor Tristan Carter (Department of Anthropology, MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario) will speak on the topic, “The Stélida Naxos Archaeological Project: Early Humans in the Aegean”. Prof. Carter is a well-known prehistorian who specializes in the chipped stone industries of the Aegean basin and Anatolia. He is the director of the project.

Until relatively recently the Cycladic islands were not believed to have been colonised by humans until farmer arrived in the Late Neolithic, some 7000 years ago. This long-held view is now being reconfigured through the discovery by Greek archaeologists of a well-dated Mesolithic (late hunter-gatherer) village on Kythnos, and claimed Mesolithic – Middle Palaeolithic activities at Stélida on Naxos.

Carter’s lecture details the most recent work at Stélida, a two-year survey conducted under the aegis of the Institute dedicated to mapping this chert source and its prehistoric stone tool workshops. He will detail how the quarry was clearly being exploited from the Lower Palaeolithic (likely by Homo heidelbergensis), followed by major stone working in the Middle Palaeolithic (Neanderthals), and then through the earlier Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic (Homo sapiens sapiens), i.e. a history of intermittent usage that spans from at least 300,000 to 9,000 years ago. The discovery of such early material on Naxos has potentially major significance for how researchers view the earliest peopling of Europe. With recent sea-level reconstructions suggesting a landbridge between Anatolia and the southern Greek mainland, Stélida may provide evidence that the Aegean represented a thoroughfare for early human migrations, rather than the barrier it was long considered to be.

Welcome Christina!

One of the harbingers of summer at the Institute (besides Jonathan wearing shorts to work) is the arrival of the undergraduate intern from York University. This weekend Christina Ioannides came to Athens for three months. She is a fourth year Hellenic Studies major with concentration on Greek texts and poems spanning from the 5^th century BC through contemporary Greece. Christina is fascinated by how the tales of the ancient Greek heroes and gods have been kept alive through the use of oral tradition for thousands of years. On this her first visit to Greece she will have an excellent opportunity to hone her modern Greek language skills and expand her vocabulary. You can read more about Christina on our website and welcome her warmly at the Annual Open Meeting on the 13^th.

While at the Institute, Christina will undertake the usual mixture of work. That is cataloguing new acquisitions in the Library, categorizing and organizing Greek documents in the Archive and scanning documents and images in the Archive.

Where did the Greek antiquities in the BM come from?

The Elgin marbles which now reside in the British Museum in London are well-known. But these sculptures are not the only Greek antiquities held by the Museum. The question is often raised, “How did the British Museum acquire these items?” A partial answer to this question will be presented in the lecture of Dr. Yannis Galanakis (Lecturer in Greek Prehistory, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge) on Monday, May 11^th at 18:30. His lecture is entitled, “Charles Merlin: a British Consul in Athens and the Sourcing of Greek antiquities for the British Museum (1865-1892)”.

Based on unpublished archival material, Galanakis’ lecture offers a brief biographical account of Charles Louis William Merlin, who served on Her Britannic Majesty’s consular service in Greece for almost 50 years (1839-1887). Merlin was one of the British Museum’s most productive antiquities agents in Athens. His extensive correspondence (1864-1892) with the London institution, offers the opportunity to reconstruct his role in the sourcing of ancient objects directly from the Greek capital to the United Kingdom. The study of this material provides significant new insights into the value and types of objects sourced and the structure of Merlin’s transactions as well as the organization of the antiquities trade in Greece at the time. The correspondence highlights the different attitudes towards the collection and sale of antiquities in 19th-century Greece and the reasons for which Merlin was involved in this – financially and politically – risky activity.

After the lecture you will know the rest of the story about the British Museum’s acquisition methods in the later 19^th century. This lecture at the Historical Archive at Psaromylingou 22, on the cusp of the Kerameikos and Psyrri Districts, is sponsored by the Syllogos Filon tou Istorikou Archaeiou tis Archaiologikis Yperasias as part of its 2014-2015 Lecture Series.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director

The Fred Winter Collection

Selinus, blocked up “entrance” near W end of westward return of great stepped wall (Professor Fred Winter, 1957)