The Third CIG Book Sale is almost over! Who was the Czech architect Vaclav Seyk?

From time to time the Library of the Institute amasses a quantity of duplicate books, monographs and journal issues, mostly the result of donations and the acquisition of newer editions. When the bookshelves in the Institute’s office are overflowing we put the lot up for sale to the highest bidders. This iteration of the Sale started in January and continues until the 31^st of March. We are currently selling over 200 books and monographs, plus 200 or so periodical volumes. The spreadsheet with the list of items for sale is accessible via: http://www.cig-icg.gr/sites/default/files/CIG-BookSale2017.xls. The process is simple: you connect to the link; peruse the contents of the list and email booksale@cig-icg.gr to make a bid on those items you wish dearly to own. In early April Jonathan will notify the lucky new owners. You can then come to the Institute to pay for the books and take them away. If this, is not convenient we can send them to you after you pay online (+ postage and handling charges). Money talks! Every book can walk!

This is a win-win undertaking! You get the books, monographs or journal issues that you have always longed to have in your personal library at a reasonable cost and the Institute’s Library gets additional funds to purchase more reference works (in French, English and Greek) and books and monographs in the areas that we focus on such as Boeotian studies, archaeological theory and methods, bioarchaeology, archaeological science, Thessalian studies, etc. So don’t be left out! Make your bids now as you have only three weeks to enter the auction!!!

The Czech architect Vaclav Seyk

In the late 19^th and the earlier 20^th centuries the foundations of Greek archaeology as we know it today were laid. For the first time, in a systematic fashion, the predecessor cultures/periods to that of the “Classical Period” were revealed, especially on the island of Crete. This age of discovery of the prehistoric and pre-classical periods is remembered mostly now by the directors of these major excavations, such as H. Schliemann, A. Evans, H. Boyd, R.C. Bosanquet, C. Blegen, and P. Demargne, to name a few. Their colleagues, especially their architects, are usually referred to in modern scholarship only in footnotes. Without the talents and the insights of the trained architects, however, the architectural remains uncovered would have been unintelligible.

On Monday, March 13^th at 19:00 Professor Giorgos Vavouranakis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Dr. Tomáš Alušík (Charles University, Prague), and Dr. George Manginis (Benaki Museum, Athens) will give a lecture entitled, “The role of architects at the dawn of prehistoric research in the Aegean: The case of Vaclav Seyk”. This lecture in English is the next installment of the 2016/2017 Lecture Program of the Syllogos Filon tou Istorikou Archeiou tis Archaiologikis Yperesias.

Vaclav Sejk or Seyk was of Czech origin. He lived in the second half of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries and his name is linked to the beginnings of archaeology as a discipline in Greece. He made the architectural drawings for the excavations at Lato, Gournia and Palaikastro in Crete, as well as the topographical plan of Sparta and conducted fieldwork in the Troad. The present lecture aims to illuminate Vaclav Sejk’s life, which is connected to the Russian-Turkish War of 1878, the Ottoman Empire before the Young Turk Revolution, the Bulgarian pan-slavism, the Great War and the independence of Czechoslovakia during the Inter-War period. In addition, it assesses his work in relation to the wider epistemological framework of the period and illuminates this relatively unknown personality in Greek - and particularly - prehistoric archaeology.

The lecture will be held at 19:00 in the Library of the Canadian Institute in Greece (Dion. Aiginitou 7 – Ilissia). The public is welcome.

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director