Sifting the Soil of Greece

David W.J. Gill, Sifting the Soil of Greece: the Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919). Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, suppl. 111. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2011. ISBN 978-1-905670-32-1. £38. xiv + 474 pp.
[WorldCat]

The British School at Athens opened in 1886 “to promote all researches and studies” which could “advance the knowledge of Hellenic history, literature, and art from the earliest age to the present day”. Over the next thirty years the School initiated a major programme of excavations, initially on Cyprus, then at Megalopolis, on Melos, and at Sparta. School students took part in the work of the Cretan Exploration Fund and in the major regional surveys of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund.

Most of the students who were admitted to the School in this period had been educated at either Cambridge or Oxford. Women, mostly from Cambridge, took part in the School’s activities including the excavations at Phylakopi. The students’ research interests included Greek pottery, Aegean prehistory, and epigraphy. The experience of Greece prepared the students for later work in British universities and in other professions. Many extended their archaeological experience in Greece to fieldwork in Britain, Egypt, and India.

During the First World War former students were involved in intelligence work in the eastern Mediterranean through the activities of the Arab Bureau in Cairo.

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BSA Students and Crete in the First World War

Students of the BSA had been involved in a series of excavations across Crete since the foundation of the Cretan Exploration Fund. These had included Knossos, the Dictaean Cave, Kato Zakro, Praesos, Palaikastro, the Kamares Cave and Plati.

Three former BSA students were commissioned as officers in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR): Richard M. Dawkins (1871-1955), John C. Lawson (1874-1935), and William R. Halliday (1886-1966). Their role was to monitor the activity of German submarines and to be involved in counter-espionage.

Lawson was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Dawkins had just resigned as Director of the BSA and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Both were in their 40s. Halliday had been appointed Rathbone Professor of Ancient History at Liverpool in 1914. Lawson was commissioned in February 1916, Halliday in May, and Dawkins in December. All held the rank of Lieutenant; Lawson rose to be Lt-Commander. (Dawkins' father had retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of Read-Admiral.) Lawson was based at Suda Bay, Dawkins to eastern Crete (an area he knew well from his excavations there), and Halliday to the western part of the island.

Lawson later wrote about aspects of his activity as an intelligence officer:

He must secure native agents ashore along coastlines of many hundred miles to report sightings of submarines, and movements of ships or persons suspected of communicating with or re-victualling them, and devise codes for the passing of such information. He must direct the tracking and procure the arrest of spies and enemy agents in general.

One of Lawson's actions was to annexe (briefly) the island of Kythera in January 1917 as he considered it to be acting as a base for enemy submarines responsible for a series of sinkings.

This work on Crete was conducted alongside other intelligence work through the Eastern Mediterranean Special Intelligence Bureau (EMSIB) in Salonica (see Harry Pirie-Gordon) or through civilian activity in Athens.

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Cretan Exploration Fund: Anthropology

Human and animal remains from excavations of the Cretan Exploration Fund were send to Professor William Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929) of Manchester University. Boyd Dawkins was a friend of Evans and was invited to Knossos. He had worked on cave deposits in England, notably Wookey Hole and Cresswell Crags, and was thus a natural choice to advise Hogarth for the interpretation of animal remains from the Dictaean Cave. He also made comments on the skulls found during Hogarth's excavations at Kato Zakro.

Bosanquet wrote about the human remains from Palaikastro:

Old C---'s [presumably Charles Comyn] fondness for skulls is notorious; to-day he packed 13 of them in two large mule-paniers and sent them off to the Museum at Candia, hoping they may arrive there in time to be measured and reported on by Body-Dawkins. B.-D. is the author of a sporting book on 'Cave-hunting,' and what he doesn't know about bones isn't worth knowing. Also he's a pal of Evans', and is coming to Cnossos to stay with E. [April 21, 1902]

The following season Wynfrid L.H. Duckworth, Cambridge university lecturer in physical anthropology, joined the team to work on the remains found in the ossuaries. As he was a qualified medical doctor (St Bartholomew's Hospital in London) he was able to meet the medical needs of the local community.

Duckworth has a lot of doctoring to do and is very good and patient. Our drugs, sufficient for my modest practice, aren't enough for his, but that's just as well, for we have no business to take the place of the local doctors and chemists by a too wholesale distribution of medicines. [March 28, 1903]

Charles H. Hawes of Trinity College, Cambridge, joined the project in 1905 to continue this work.

References
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1900/01. "Skulls from cave burials at Zakro." Annual of the British School at Athens 7: 150-56. [See comment by J.L. Myres, Man 2 [1902] 122-23.]
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1902. "Remains of animals found in the Dictaean Cave in 1901." Man 2: 162-65. [JSTOR]
Duckworth, W. L. H. 1902/03a. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 11. Human remains at Hagios Nikolaos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 344-50.
—. 1902/03b. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 12. Ossuaries at Roussolakkos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 350-55.
Hawes, C. H. 1904/05. "Excavations at Palaikastro. IV. § 7. Larnax burials at Sarandari." Annual of the British School at Athens 11: 293-97.

Image
Skull from Zakro.

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Oxford and the Managing Committee

The University of Oxford's nominee on the Managing committee was David Binning Monro (1836-1905), Provost of Oriel College (from 1882). On his death the nominee was Professor Percy Gardner (1846-1937) who held the Lincoln and Merton chair in Classical Archaeology (from 1887). Gardner had served on the original Managing Committee when he held the Disney chair of archaeology in Cambridge.

Those elected by the subscribers were:

• Professor Henry Francis Pelham (1846-1907) was the Camden Professor Ancient History (from 1889). Pelham's interest was in the work of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund though he supported the work of the School (and was later to be influential in the foundation of the British School at Rome).
• Professor (Sir) John Linton Myres (1869-1954) had been a student at the BSA (1892-95) alongside a fellowship at Magdalen College (1892-95). He returned to Oxford as a Student of Christ Church (1895-1907) and university lecturer in Classical Archaeology. After a time as professor in Liverpool (1907-10) Myres returned to Oxford as the Wykeham professor of Ancient History (1910-39).
• (Sir) Arthur John Evans (1851-1941) had been appointed Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in 1884. He had initiated the work at Knossos and was a key figure in the Cretan Exploration Fund.
• Francis John Haverfield (1860-1919) senior student and tutor at Christ Church. In 1907 he was elected Camden Professor of Ancient History.
  
• David George Hogarth (1862-1927) had been the first Oxford student at the BSA (1886/87). He had subsequently been Director of the BSA (1897-1900) and had worked with the Cretan Exploration Fund. In 1908 succeeded Evans as Keeepr of the Ashmolean Museum.
• Marcus Niebuhr Tod (1878-1974) was a student at the BSA (1901/02) and then Assistant Director (1902-04). He was elected a fellow of Oriel College in 1903 (though was allowed to remain in Greece) and became tutor in ancient history in 1905. In 1907 he was appointed university lecturer in Greek Epigraphy.
  

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Publishing the results of BSA projects

Articles on BSA projects were initially published in The Journal of Hellenic Studies and then in The Annual of the British School at Athens (from vol. 1 for the session 1894/95). Reports on major projects (Megalopolis, Phylakopi and Sparta) then appeared as Supplementary Papers for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies:

• Gardner, E. A., W. Loring, G. C. Richards, W. J. Woodhouse, and R. W. Schultz. 1892. Excavations at Megalopolis, 1890-1891. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 1. London: Macmillan.
• Atkinson, T. D., R. C. Bosanquet, C. C. Edgar, A. J. Evans, D. G. Hogarth, D. Mackenzie, C. Harcourt-Smith, and F. B. Welch. 1904. Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper, vol. 4. London: Macmillan.
  
• Dawkins, R. M. 1929. The sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper, vol. 5. London: Macmillan. [digital]
  

These Supplementary Papers also published the results of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund:

• Headlam, A. C. 1892. Ecclesiastical sites in Isauria (Cilicia Trachea). Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 2. London: Macmillan.

The third Supplementary Paper was relevant to the work in Athens:

• Middleton, J. H. (ed. E.A. Gardner) 1900. Plans and drawings of Athenian buildings. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Supplementary Paper, vol. 3. London: Macmillan.

Results from excavations at Palaikastro were published after the First World War as a supplement to the Annual:

• Bosanquet, R. C., and R. M. Dawkins. 1923. The unpublished objects from Palaikastro excavations, 1902-1906. British School at Athens supplementary papers, vol. 1. London: British School at Athens.

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John Pendlebury: The Rash Adventurer

The research of John Pendlebury (1904-41) bridged the gap between Bronze Age Crete and Egypt. He was educated at Winchester, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Grundon's detailed study gives a view of research at the BSA during the 1920s and 1930s. It covers Pendlebury's key work on Crete and his excavations at Amarna. There is a detailed discussion of Pendlebury's role in the defence of Crete in 1941.

Grundon, I. 2007. The rash adventurer: a life of John Pendlebury. London: Libri. [Amazon] [WorldCat]

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Architects and the BSA

Architectural students form a significant group at the BSA. This is a preliminary list.

The first arrangements for an architect to be admitted the BSA were made in November 1887. This was the result of an initiative from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) ‘to assist upon architectural work in excavations’.

The first architectural student was Ravenscroft Elsey Smith (1859-1930), son of Thomas Roger Smith (1830-1903), an architect and professor of architecture at University College London (UCL) from 1880. Smith had studied at the Slade School, UCL (1877-78). In Greece he was attached to the work of the Cyprus Exploration Fund (CEF) assisting with the work at Paphos (1887/88). Smith subsequently went into partnership with his father, before holding the chairs of architecture at King's College, London (1900-13) and UCL (1913-20).

Smith overlapped with two architects working on Byzantine monuments: Robert Weir Schultz (Schultz Weir) (1860-1951) and Sidney Howard Barnsley (1865-1926). Schultz was a gold medallist and travelling student of the Royal Academy of Arts. Barnsley was a student of the Royal Academy. They started their association in the London office of Richard Norman Shaw. Apart from working on the architecture of the Erechtheion, they made a major study of Ayios Loukas in Phocis. They were engaged to work on Byzantine architecture in Salonica and at Mount Athos under the patronage of Dr Edwin Freshfield. Schultz later assisted with the work at Megalopolis.

The BSA recognised the importance of the contributions made by architects and created an architectural studentship. The first holder was Charles Richmond Rowland Clark (b. 1869) (an 'architectural artist') in 1896/97, though he had been in a Greece the preceding year on a studentship from Royal Academy.

Pieter Rodeck (b. 1875) was admitted as a gold medallist and travelling student of the Royal Academy (1896/97). He assisted with the work at the gymnasium at Kynosarges.

Edward Barclay Hoare (1872-1943), the son of Robert Gurney Hoare, a banker, studied at Magdalen College, Oxford (1890-94) and was an architectural student (1897-98). (His brother Charles was a stockbroker.) His architectural work included ecclesiastical projects.

Arthur Edward Henderson (1870-1956) was Owen Jones student of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1897/98) and was admitted to the BSA in 1897/98. He was re-admitted in 1898/99, 1901/02, and 1902/03. He lived in Constantinople until 1904. He assisted Bosanquet with the project at Kyzikos, and Hogarth with his excavations at Ephesus.

Thomas Dinham Atkinson (1864-1948) studied at University College London and had been articled to the architect Sir Arthur Blomfield. After working as an architect in Cambridge, Atkinson was admitted as an architectural student (1898/99). During the year he assisted with the excavations at Phylakopi on Melos. He was later surveyor to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral (from 1918) and to the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College (1919-46).

David Theodore Fyfe (1875-1945) trained at the Glasgow School of Art (1885-87, 1890-97). He was admitted as the architectural student at the BSA (1899/1900). He then served as architect to the Cretan Exploration Fund until c. 1905. He returned to work in London, and was then director of the School of Architecture at Cambridge University.

Robert Douglas Wells (1875-1963) studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (1893-96) and was admitted to the BSA on an architectural studentship (1900/01). He worked with Bosanquet at Praesos in eastern Crete (1901).

Charles Heaton Fitzwilliam Comyn (1877-1933) was admitted to the architectural studentship in 1901/02 (and re-admitted 1903/04). As well as working on studies of Byzantine architecture, he excavated in eastern Crete with John H. Marshall (his contemporary at Dulwich College), and with Bosanquet at Palaikastro. He was re-admitted in the spring of 1904 to work on the new Penrose Library and the extension to the hostel.

Edwin Francis Reynolds (1875-1949) was admitted to the BSA in 1902/03 after serving as an architect's assistant in London. He prepared a series of architectural drawings in Greece, Constantinople and Bursa.

James Black Fulton (1876-1922) held a Royal Academy Prize (1899) and was admitted as a Soane Student to the BSA (1902/03) as part of a study tour of Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine and Egypt.

Christian Charles Tyler Doll (b. 1880) was the son of Charles Fitzroy Doll, a London architect. After studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, he took a diploma in architecture at UCL (1903). He was admitted to the BSA 1904/5 and served as architect at Knossos.

Ramsay Traquair (1874-1952), son of Ramsay H. Traquair, keeper of the Natural History collections in Edinburgh, was admitted as an architectural student to the BSA in 1905/06. He was also a student of the Byzantine Fund. He worked on the survey of Laconia and on the architectural project in Constantinople. He was subsequently professor of architecture at McGill University, Montreal.

Frank George Orr (b. 1881) trained at the Glasgow School of Art (1898-1901, 1902-03), and was admitted to the British School at Rome (1904) and the BSA (1905/06).

Walter Sykes George (1881-1962) was a travelling student in architecture from the Royal College of Art, and a Soane Medallist of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was admitted to the BSA in 1906/07, and then in 1908/09, 1909/10 (as a student of the Byzantine Research Fund), and 1912/13. He worked on architectural projects in Constantinople, and assisted with the excavations at Meroe in the Sudan.

W. Harvey was a gold medallist and travelling student of the Royal Academy and was admitted to the British School at Rome and the BSA in 1907/08.

Lionel Bailey Budden (1887-1956) trained at the Liverpool School of Architecture (1905-09), and was admitted to the British School at Rome and the BSA in 1909/10. He returned to Liverpool as associate professor (1910-33) and then Roscoe Professor of Architecture (1933-52).

Harry Herbert Jewell (1882-1974) was admitted to the British School at Rome and the BSA in 1909/10. He worked with F.W. Hasluck on Paros.

George Esslemont Gordon Leith (1886-1965) had worked in South Africa as an architect with Sir Herbert Baker on the Union Buildings before being admitted as the first Herbert Baker Student at the British School at Rome (1911). He subsequently was admitted to the BSA (1912/13).

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