Abstract
Despite the well-known adage, the Greeks did not always have a word for it. ‘Archaeology’ has of course an ancient Greek etymology. But when the word was invented in the fifth century B.C., it did not mean what we would understand by archaeology but something like ‘antiquarian lore’.1 This is not to say that the ancient Greeks were not interested in matters archaeological. Far from it. For example, in about 470 B.C. the Athenian general Cimon, son of Miltiades of Marathon fame, dug up the alleged bones of the mythical hero Theseus on the island of Skyros and had them re-buried in Athens — an early instance of politically motivated excavation.2 And about seventy years later Thucydides, the great Athenian historian of the Peloponnesian War (431–04 B.C.), provides the earliest recorded ‘excavation report’ (1.8.1.): ‘during the war the Athenians purified Delos, removing the tombs of all those buried on the island. Over half of these turned out to be Carians [non-Greeks], recognizable both by the range of weapons interred with them and by the manner of burial — still followed in Caria’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford, 1968) pp. 51–4.
A. J. Podlecki, ‘Cimon, Skyros and “Theseus” bones’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. XCI (1971) 141–3.
E. Pernice and W. H. Gross, ‘Gelegentliche Bemerkungen zur Archäologie in der antiken Literatur’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie, 2nd edn (Munich, 1969) pp. 448–65.
Glyn Daniel, The Origins and Growth of Archaeology (Harmondsworth, 1967); A Short History of Archaeology (London, 1981) and (ed.) Towards a History of Archaeology. (London. 1981).
Peter Green, The Shadow of the Parthenon (London, 1972) p. 12.
Stephen Gardiner, in the Observer Colour Magazine, 14 Jan. 1979, pp. 28ff.
Helen Hill Miller, Greece through the Ages: as Seen by Travellers from Herodotus to Byron (London, 1972) pp. 4–6;
C. Mitchell, ‘Ciriaco d’Ancona: fifteenth century drawings and descriptions of the Parthenon’, in V. J. Bruno (ed.), The Parthenon (New York, 1974) pp. 111–23.
Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1969); the discovery of the Greek world is discussed in ch.10.
E. W. Bodner and C. Mitchell (eds), Cyriacus of Ancona’s Journeys in the Propontis and the Northern Aegean, 1444–1445 (Philadelphia, 1976) p. 39 and n.75, figs 21–2. See also Phyllis Lehmann in P. W. and K. Lehmann, Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique Bollingen Series, vol. XCII (Princeton, 1973) pp. 3–56.
D. E. L. Haynes, The Arundel Marbles (Oxford, 1975); see also the unpublished doctoral thesis of D. J. Howarth, ‘Lord Arundel as a Patron and Collector 1604–1646’ (Cambridge, 1978). A lavishly illustrated account of ‘the lure of classical sculpture’ between 1500 and 1900 is given in F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique (Yale, 1981).
J. Stuart and N. Revett, The Antiquities of Athens, Measured and Delineated, 4 vols and supp. (London, 1762–1830). A colour reproduction of Revett’s ‘Stuart Sketching the Erechtheum’ (1751) is printed in F.-M. Tsigakou’s The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era (London, 1981) pl. II.
J. Mordaunt Crook, The Greek Revival RIBA drawings series (London, 1968).
Illustrated in R. Ling, The Greek World (Oxford, 1976) p. 28.
Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1956) esp. p. 119.
John Wilton Ely, Piranesi: Catalogue (London, 1978) pp. 123–4. Piranesi, however, persisted in regarding the temples as Roman:
N. Penny, Piranesi (London, 1978) p. 95.
Note, too, that (pace Wilton Ely) only one of the three temples is of the fifth century B. C. , the other two being of the sixth: W. D. E. Coulson, in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (Princeton, 1976) pp. 663–5.
C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae near Phigaleia in Arcadia (London, 1860);
cf. D. Watkin, The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell (London, 1974).
Reproduced in A. W. Johnston, The Emergence of Greece (Oxford, 1976) p. 27.
D. Ohly, Die Aegineten: die Marmorskulpturen des Tempels derAfihaia auf Aegina; ein Katalog der Glyptothek München, vol. I (Munich, 1976).
On the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen see briefly G. Boesen, Danish Museums (Copenhagen, 1966) pp. 81–6; a learned exhibition catalogue is Bertel Thorualdsen: Skulpturen, Modelle, bozzetti, Handzeichnungen, Gemälde aus Thorvaldsens Sammlungen (Köln, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 5 Feb. to 3 May 1977).
Leo Deuel, Memoirs of Heinrich Schliemann (London, 1978);
cf. W. A. McDonald, Progress into the Past: the Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilisation (Bloomington and London, 1967) ch.2.
Reproduced in P. M. Warren, The Aegean Civilisations (Oxford, 1975) p. 12.
H. Schliemann, Troy and its Remains (London, 1875); Ilios: the City and Country of the Trojans (London, 1880); Troja: Results of the Latest Researches (London, 1884).
See now M. I. Finley, ‘Schliemann’s Troy — one hundred years after’, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. LXX (1974) 393–412 (also published separately).
H. Schliemann. Mycenae: a Narrative of Researches (London 1878)
G. E. Mylonas, The Grave Circle B at Mycenae (Athens, 1972–3) (in Greek).
A. J. Evans, The Palace of Minos, 4 vols (London, 1921–36);
cf. Joan Evans, Time and Chance: the Story of Arthur Evans and His Forebears (London, 1943) esp. pp. 308–51.
M. W. Thompson, General Pitt-Rivers: Evolution and Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century (Bradford-on-Avon, 1977).
See e.g. D. P. Brothwell and E. S. Higgs (eds), Science in Archaeology 2nd edn (London. 1969).
P. M. Warren, Myrtos: an Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (London, 1972); cf. Warren, Aegean Civilizations, pp. 61–6 (photograph of M. Petrakis on p. 65).
It is attributed to the Peleus Painter (a member of the ‘Group of Polygnotos’), for whose oeuvre see J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, vol. II 2nd edn (Oxford, 1963) pp. 1038–40, 1679;
J. D. Beazley, Paralipomena 2nd edn (Oxford, 1971) p. 443.
Preliminary account by the director of excavations, A. Birchall, in Illustrated London News for Sept. 1978, pp. 71–5;
for a semi-popular account by the discoverer of the wreck see R. Morris, HMS Colossus: the Story of the Salvage of the Hamilton Treasures (London, 1979).
cf. G. Roux, Greece (London, 1958) p. 130: ‘Deprived of its illustrious name, the “Navel of the World” became a hamlet of three hundred hearths, Kastri, where the sad grey houses had not even the whitewash that the villages of Attica and Cyclades throw over their poverty like the cloak of Noah.’
See generally E. Harp, Jr. (ed.), Photography in Archaeological Research (Albuquerque, 1975).
For some aerial photographs in colour of Greek sites see R. V. Schoder, Ancient Greece from the Air (London, 1974), esp. pp. 45–53 (Delphi). Satellite and shuttle photographs of Greece are now also available, though not yet easily accessible.
For a tentative post-Marathon dating see Johnston, Emergence, p. 70. However, J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture: the Archaic Period (London, 1978) fig. 213, gives a date of about 500–490 s.c.
Amandry, ‘Statue de taureau en argent’, in Etudes Delphiques (BCH, Supp. IV, Paris, 1977) pp. 273–93.
Cl. Rolley, Fouilles de Delphes, v. 3 (Paris, 1977), pp. 131–45.
For the history of exploration and excavation at Olympia see B. Fellmann, in B. Fellmann and H. Scheyhing (eds), 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabung in Olympia (Munich, 1972) pp. 27–34.
Kunze, ‘Ein Bronzhelm aus der Perserbeute’, Olympiabericht, vol. 7 (1961) 129–37. The contemporary Greek helmet dedicated at Olympia by a Miltiades — Kunze, Olympiabericht, vol. 5 (1956) 69–74 — is not certainly the one worn by the brilliant Athenian general of that name at Marathon.
A. Mallwitz, Olympia und seine Bauten (Munich, 1972) pp. 211–34.
B. S. Ridgway, The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1970).
A. Mallwitz and W. Schiering, Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia (Olympische Forschungen 5, Berlin, 1964).
On the Parthenon Athena see R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis (eds) A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B. C. (Oxford, 1969) no. 54.
We do hear of some internal Athenian opposition, but the evidence is far from impeccable: A. Andrewes, ‘The opposition to Perikles’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. XCVIII (1978) 1–8, esp. p. 2.
For the employment of slave masons in the construction of the Erechtheum in the last decade of the fifth century see A. Burford, Craftsmen in Greek and Roman Society (London, 1972) p. 91.
The drawings may conveniently be studied in T. Bowie and D. Thimme (eds), The Carrey Drawings of the Parthenon Sculptures (Bloomington and London, 1971).
W. St Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles (Oxford, 1967);
Carl Nylander, The Deep Well: Archaeology and the Life of the Past (Harmondsworth, 1971) pp. 145–54.
E. Miller, That Noble Cabinet: a History of the British Museum (London, 1973) esp. pp. 102–7.
B. Bernard, ‘The Sunday Times’ Book of Photodiscovery (London, 1980) pl. 17.
H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977) pp. 33–50.
R. E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (Princeton, 1978) pp. 117, 206.
C. M. Robertson and A. Frantz, The Parthenon Frieze (London, 1975) p. 9.
J. Boardman , ‘The Parthenon frieze — another view’ in U. Höckmann and A. Krug (eds), Festschrijt für Fank Brommer (Mainz, 1977) pp. 39–49.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1983 Tom Winnifrith and Penelope Murray
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cartledge, P. (1983). Archaeology in Greece. In: Winnifrith, T., Murray, P. (eds) Greece Old and New. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05123-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05123-6_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-05125-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-05123-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)