Women at the BSA (1919–1939): Girton College

Six former members of Girton College, Cambridge were admitted to the BSA between the wars:

• Benton, Miss S. Girton 1907–10. Lady Margaret Hall 1929–30; B.Litt. 1934. BSA adm. 1927–28; re-admitted 1929–30; 1935–36; 1936–38. Excavated on Ithaka. 
• Coke, Miss K.N. Admitted 1937–38. 
• Fisher, Miss V. (The Hon. Mrs Hankey). Admitted 1938–39. Excavated at Knossos; Mycenae.
• Gray, Miss J.E. Admitted 1937–38. 
• Hartley, Miss M. Classical Tutor at Somerville College, Oxford. Admitted 1928–29. Excavated on Crete.
• Thomas, Miss H. Admitted 1935–36.

Winifred Lamb: Aegean Prehistorian and Museum Curator

Cover image: British School at Athens

My biography of Winifred Lamb is due to be published in September 2018. The study covers her time as a student at the British School at Athens (as well as her preliminary visit to the Mycenae excavations before she was admitted), and her excavations at Mycenae, Sparta, in Macedonia, on Lesbos and on Chios. Her active fieldwork in the Aegean continued into the 1930s when she shifted her interests to Anatolia (through the excavation at Kusura).

Lamb was simultaneously the honorary keeper of Greek Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, where she created a prehistoric gallery displaying finds from British excavations on Crete and on Melos.

A God in Every Stone: Kamila Shamsie

Kamila Shamsie's latest novel, A God in Every Stone (Bloomsbury), has just been published in the UK. Part of it is set on an excavation in Turkey during July 1914 where Vivian Rose Spencer is excavating a temple of Zeus.

I was delighted to receive a mention in the acknowledgements and a pointer to my Sifting the Soil of Greece. [See details]

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk

Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide-Books

Gill, D. W. J. 2013. "Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide Books." Public Archaeology 11: 169-78.

Abstract
Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883–1969) was responsible for the preparation of a series of guidebooks published by the Palestine News immediately after the First World War. The information had been prepared for the British attack on Palestine. Pirie-Gordon first went to Syria in 1908 ostensibly to study Crusader castles. He took part in the survey of the Syrian coast around Alexandretta and worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times. Pirie-Gordon was commissioned in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and initially worked through the Arab Bureau in Cairo. After a spell in Salonica, he was commissioned in the Army, returned to Cairo, and took responsibility for the publication of the Palestine News for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Allenby’s campaign in Palestine drew on the developing technology of aerial photography to prepare accurate maps of troop dispositions.

[DOI]

BSA students and the Fitzwilliam Museum

My study of donations to the Fitzwilliam Museum by students of the BSA is now available online.

Gill, D. W. J. 2012. "From the Cam to the Cephissus: the Fitzwilliam Museum and students of the British School at Athens." Journal of the History of Collections: 1-10.

Abstract
The Fitzwilliam Museum holds material brought back to England by some of the early nineteenth-century travellers to Greece, including Edward Daniel Clarke and William Martin Leake. However, it was not until the later nineteenth century, with the founding of such organizations as the British School at Athens and the Cyprus Exploration Fund, that the Museum's collections started to be enriched through material excavated or otherwise acquired in Greece by archaeologists and other students. This article maps the impact of the emerging discipline of archaeology on the Fitzwilliam's collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also demonstrates how the Museum profited from the close connections between students, archaeologists and museum officers of the period.

[Abstract]

John Pendlebury at Amarna

The EES has issued a video showing the work of John Pendlebury at Amarna.

Sifting the Soil of Greece: Review

Review by Sinclair Hood, in The Anglo-Hellenic Review 44 (Autumn 2011), 29

• 'Gill's book is a revelation of the diversity and interest of the work done by the staff and members of the BSA in the period of just over 30 years from its foundation in 1886 until 1919.'
• 'There are three long and useful appendices on Trustees, Managing Committee (Council) Members and Directors, and Students, followed by a very full biography, which all help to make this an invaluable work of reference.'

Winifred Lamb: obituary

Winifred's obituary appeared in The Times.

Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop

Rachel Clay excavated with Winifred Lamb at Kusura. Her obituary has appeared in The Daily Telegraph (3 August 2011). She appears as "Miss Stone" in Winifred's short story, "The Inspector Interferes".

Sifting the Soil of Greece: Student Biographies

Sifting the Soil of Greece contains three sets of short biographies:

• i. Trustees of the British School at Athens
• ii. Members of the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens
• iii. Directors and students at the British School at Athens