Walter Abel Heurtley
Walter Abel Heurtley FSA | |
---|---|
Born | , Sussex | 24 October 1882
Died | 2 January 1955 Dublin | (aged 72)
Occupation | Classical archaeologist |
Spouse |
Eileen Mary O'Connell
(m. 1914) |
Family | Charles Abel Heurtley (grandfather) |
Awards | |
Academic background | |
Education | |
Academic work | |
Institutions | |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | Major |
Unit | |
Wars | First World War |
Walter Abel Heurtley
After the war, Heurtley studied classical archaeology at Oriel College, Oxford, under Percy Gardner and with Stanley Casson, the assistant director of the British School at Athens (BSA). Heurtley followed Casson to the BSA, excavating in 1921 with him in Macedonia, and with the school's director, Alan Wace, at Mycenae. In 1923, Heurtley succeeded Casson as the BSA's assistant director, and also assumed the role of its librarian; he held both posts until his dismissal, on financial grounds, in 1932. He subsequently became the librarian of the Department of Antiquities of the Mandate for Palestine, a position he held until 1939, and ended his career as bursar of The Oratory School.
Heurtley was elected as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1936. He excavated widely in northern Greece during the 1920s and 1930s, and published his monograph, Prehistoric Macedonia, in 1939. He also excavated on the island of Ithaca between 1930 and 1932, and spent a season at Troy under Carl Blegen in 1932. He was often accompanied on his excavations by his wife, Eileen, who cooked for his excavators. He retired to her ancestral home in County Kerry in 1945, and died of cancer in 1955.
Early life and education
Walter Abel Heurtley was born on 24 October 1882,[1] in Ashington in Sussex. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Heurtley (née Brown). His father was Charles Abel Heurtley, a Church of England vicar at Ashington, a descendant of French Huguenots, and the son of the theologian and Oxford professor Charles Abel Heurtley.[2]
Heurtley was educated at Uppingham School, a public school in Rutland, and won a scholarship from there to read classics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.[3] He matriculated on 1 October 1902, and graduated with a second in 1905.[4] He joined the part-time Volunteer Force of the British Army in 1906, as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers.[5] From 1907, Heurtley taught at The Oratory School, a Roman Catholic boarding school then based in Birmingham.[6]
During the First World War, Heurtley joined the
Archaeological career
After the war, Heurtley moved to
Oxford University's Craven Committee awarded Heurtley a grant to carry out excavations in Macedonia during the 1922–1923 digging season.
Casson resigned as the BSA's assistant director in 1922;
Heurtley continued to excavate in Macedonia until 1931, working at sites including Servia, Kritsana and Amenochori.[16] In June 1924, he excavated a prehistoric toumba (the local name for a tell) in the Vardar valley, near Karasouli.[17] Winifred Lamb joined Heurtley's excavations at the tell of Vardaroftsa near Thessaloniki in March 1925,[18] where the excavation team lived in tents, supported by Heurtley's wife Eileen and her sister, who cooked for them.[3] Eileen Heurtley would accompany and cater for several of her husband's excavations throughout his career.[19] The Vardaroftsa team included Greek-speaking refugees from Ionia, resettled in Greece following the Turkish invasion of their homeland in 1922.[20] Heurtley returned to Vardaroftsa with a smaller team, consisting of Richard Wyatt Hutchinson and William Linsdell Cuttle, in March 1926.[21]
Among Heurtley's excavators in the 1927–1928 season in the Chalkidiki was
The BSA announced in November 1931 that Heurtley's position as Assistant Director would be abolished, owing to financial constraints brought on by the Greek economic crisis of the early 1930s.
Heurtley left Palestine in 1939,[1] and was bursar of The Oratory School, by then based in Oxfordshire, during the Second World War.[15] Following the publication of his 1939 monograph, Prehistoric Macedonia, he was awarded a doctor of letters degree by Cambridge University in 1940.[31] He retired in 1945, and moved to his wife's ancestral home of Derrynane House in County Kerry, Ireland. Derrynane had been the home of Daniel O'Connell, the nineteenth-century Irish Catholic leader known as "the Liberator", who was Eileen Heurtley's great-grandfather.[32]
Personal life, honours and death
Heurtley's elder brother, Archibald Charles, was born in 1872 and went up to
Heurtley travelled widely, both with Eileen and alone, and generally spent his summer holidays visiting museums and archaeological sites in Eastern Europe. These journeys provided material for his 1939 monograph Prehistoric Macedonia, still considered current by Heurtley's biographer, Rachel Hood, in 1998.[36] Eileen went with her husband on one journey through the Erymanthos Valley to Sparta, mostly without the aid of modern roads, though he ascended Mount Olympus and Mount Smolikas without her.[3]
In 1925, Heurtley was awarded the Order of the Redeemer, Greece's highest order of merit. He also received the Order of St. Sava from Yugoslavia in 1931.[37] He was elected as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1936,[30] and was also made a fellow of the German Archaeological Institute and an honorary citizen of Stavros on Ithaca.[38]
He suffered from bouts of malaria, the first in 1924,[15] and died of cancer on 2 January 1955, in Dublin.[39]
Selected works
As sole author
- Heurtley, Walter Abel (1925a). "Notes on the Harbours of S. Boeotia, and Sea-Trade between Boeotia and Corinth in Prehistoric Times". Annual of the British School at Athens. 26: 38–45. S2CID 161217619.
- — (1925b). "Pottery from Macedonian Mounds". Annual of the British School at Athens. 26: 30–37. S2CID 128409840.
- — (1927). "A Prehistoric Site in Western Macedonia and the Dorian Invasion". Annual of the British School at Athens. 28: 158–194. S2CID 163940772.
- — (1927). "Early Iron Age Pottery from Macedonia". The Antiquaries Journal. 7 (1): 44–59. S2CID 164130319.
- — (1931). "Prehistoric Macedonia: What Has Been and What Remains to Be Done". Man. 31: 216–217. JSTOR 2789555.
- — (1932). "Excavations at Sérvia in Western Macedonia". The Antiquaries Journal. 12 (3): 227–238. S2CID 163982920.
- — (1934). "Excavations in Ithaca: II". Annual of the British School at Athens. 35: 1–44. S2CID 130460863.
- — (1935). "Note on a Palestinian Painted Sherd in Athens". The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine. 4: 179–180. Retrieved 8 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
- — (1935). "Note on Fragments of Two Thessalian Proto-Geometric Vases Found at Tell Abu Hawām". The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine. 4: 181. Retrieved 8 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
- — (1936). "The Relationship Between 'Philistine' and Mycenaean Pottery". The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine. 5: 90–112. Retrieved 8 February 2024 – via Google Books.
- — (1939). "Excavations in Ithaca, 1930–35". Annual of the British School at Athens. 40: 1–13. S2CID 164172658.
- — (1939). Prehistoric Macedonia: An Archaeological Reconnaissance of Greek Macedonia (West of the Struma) in the Neolithic, Bronze, and Early Iron Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 459304061.
- — (1949). "Reviewed Works: Portrait of Durham Cathedral by G. H. Cook; Cathedrals and How They Were Built by D. H. S. Cranage". Blackfriars. 30 (347): 87–88. JSTOR 43813568.
- — (1952). "A Sherd from Pelikata, Ithaka". Annual of the British School at Athens. 47: 279. S2CID 130895400.
As co-author
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; Hutchinson, Richard Wyatt (1926). "Report on Excavations at the Toumba and Tables of Vardaróftsa, Macedonia, 1925, 1926: Part I. The Toumba". Annual of the British School at Athens. 27: 1–66. S2CID 131422568.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; S2CID 131104229.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; S2CID 164158429.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; S2CID 161685811.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; S2CID 246244774.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; S2CID 191476923.
- Heurtley, Walter Abel; OCLC 405331.
Footnotes
Explanatory notes
- ^ Pendlebury criticised Heurtley's approach to excavation, claiming that he had "destroyed a fine prehistoric site containing just what everyone wanted to know in the way of stratification", accusing him of being "merely out for what will look well in a museum", and of conducting "probably the worst dig in history".[24]
References
- ^ a b c Israel Exploration Journal 1956, p. 268.
- ^ Roberts 1912, p. 31; Hood 1998, p. 147.
- ^ a b c d Hood 1998, p. 147.
- ^ Roberts 1912, p. 31.
- ^ The London Gazette, 21 December 1906, p. 8974.
- ^ a b Hood 1998, p. 147; Gill 2018, p. 123.
- ^ a b c d e f Gill 2018, p. 123.
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 3 December 1914, p. 1136.
- ^ Hood 1998, p. 147. For the date of Heurtley's appointment, see Supplement to the London Gazette, 23 July 1917, p. 7470; for that of his OBE, see Supplement to the London Gazette, 3 June 1919, p. 6949.
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 11 August 1919, p. 10205.
- ^ Gill 2004, p. 451; Gill 2018, p. 123. For Casson's wartime service, see Myres 1945, p. 1. For Heurtley's college, see Oxford University Gazette 1921, p. 359.
- ^ Morgan 2017, pp. 157–158.
- ^ Heurtley 1925a, p. 38.
- ^ Gill 2018, p. 123. For the date, see Myres 1944, p. 613.
- ^ a b c d e f Hood 1998, p. 148.
- ^ Israel Exploration Journal 1956, p. 268; Lamb 1940, pp. 28–29
- ^ Cheetham 1925, p. 79.
- ^ Gill 2018, pp. 124–128.
- ^ Heurtley & Radford 1929, p. 1; Gill 2018, pp. 124–128.
- ^ Gill 2018, p. 125.
- ^ Heurtley & Hutchinson 1926, p. 4.
- ^ Morgan 2017, p. 158; Cook 1986, pp. vii–viii.
- ^ Heurtley & Radford 1928, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Quoted in Powell 1973, p. 69, subsequently quoted in Gill 2004, p. 452.
- ^ Heurtley & Radford 1929, p. 1; Gill 2018, pp. 124–128; Cook 1986, p. vii.
- ^ a b Dothan & Dothan 1992, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Hood 1998, p. 148; Gill 2013, p. 231.
- ^ Israel Exploration Journal 1956, p. 268; Gill 2004, p. 452.
- ^ Irving 2021, p. 165.
- ^ a b The Antiquaries Journal 1955, p. 285.
- ^ Annual Report of the Managing Committee, British School at Athens, 1950, p. 19, retrieved 9 February 2024 – via Google Books. For the date, see Gill 2004, p. 452.
- ^ Hood 1998, pp. 145–148.
- ^ Foster 1893, col. 288.
- ^ Hood 1998, pp. 145–147.
- ^ Hood 1998, pp. 148–149.
- ^ Heurtley 1939; Hood 1998, p. 147.
- ^ Gill 2004, p. 451.
- ^ Gill 2004, p. 452.
- ^ The London Gazette, 15 February 1955, p. 984; Hood 1998, p. 148.
Works cited
- "Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood". Supplement to the London Gazette. 31373: 6947–6953. 23 July 1917. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- Cheetham, Frank H. (1925). "Excavations in Macedonia". The Antiquaries Journal. 5 (1): 79. S2CID 162368072.
- JSTOR 30102886.
- ISBN 0025322613. Retrieved 9 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
- OCLC 707071870.
- Gill, David (2004). "Heurtley, Walter Abel (1882–1955)". In Todd, R. B. (ed.). The Dictionary of British Classicists. Vol. 2. Bristol: Toemmes Continuum. pp. 451–453. ISBN 9781855069978.
- Gill, David (2013). "Cultural Tourism in Greece at a Time of Economic Crisis". Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies. 1 (3): 233–242. S2CID 154352704.
- Gill, David (2018). Winifred Lamb: Aegean Prehistorian and Museum Curator. Oxford: Archaeopress. ISBN 9781784918804.
- Hood, Rachel (1998). Faces of Archaeology in Greece: Caricatures by Piet de Jong. Oxford: Leopard's Head. ISBN 0904920380.
- Irving, Sarah (2021). "Palestinian Christians in the Mandate Department of Antiquities: History and Archaeology in a Colonial Spaces". In Summerer, Karène Sanchez; Zananiri, Sary (eds.). European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948: Between Contention and Connection. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 165–186. ISBN 9783030555405. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
- JSTOR 2791569.
- ISBN 9781351978101.
- doi:10.1038/153613a0. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- JSTOR 30096903.
- "Notes and News". Israel Exploration Journal. 6 (4): 257–270. 1956. JSTOR 27924679.
- "Notices under the Trustee Act, 1925, S. 7". The London Gazette. 40407: 970–986. 15 February 1955. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
- Oxford University Gazette, vol. 52, 1921, retrieved 10 February 2024 – via Google Books
- ISBN 0340177705.
- "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries". The Antiquaries Journal. 35 (3–4): 279–287. 1955. S2CID 246044480.
- OCLC 931129288. Retrieved 5 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
- "Royal Engineers (Volunteers)". The London Gazette. 27978: 8974. 21 December 1906. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
- "War Office". Supplement to the London Gazette. 28994: 10277–10288. 3 December 1914. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- "War Office". Supplement to the London Gazette. 30198: 7463–7480. 23 July 1917. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- "War Office". Supplement to the London Gazette. 31500: 10201–10216. 11 August 1919. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
Further reading
- Gill, David (2004). "Heurtley, Walter Abel (1882–1955)". Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Philosophers. Bloomsbury Philosophical Library. ISBN 9781350052536. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
External links
- "Tholos – Aegisthus Tomb (MCNE-3-1-04)". Mycenae Archive. Cambridge University Faculty of Classics. Retrieved 7 February 2024. (Photograph of the Tomb of Aegisthus, taken by Heurtley in 1922.)
- "Walter Abel Heurtley". BSA Digital Collections. British School at Athens. Retrieved 9 February 2024. (Digital archive of Heurtley's notebooks and letters)