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.

Excavating Methymna

In late 1928 Winifred Lamb was excavating at Methymna (Molyvo) on Lesbos. Her working day was as follows:

• 6.30 am: tea, two raw eggs, bread and jam
• 7.00-8.30 am: excavating
• 8.30 am: a glass of milk 'and anything else I want'
• (8.30 am)-noon: excavating
• 12 noon - 1.30 pm: rest
• 1.30-5 pm: excavating

Antissa: Winifred Lamb's excavating team

Winifred Lamb's excavating team consisted of:

• J.K. Brock (Trinity College, Cambridge)
• Nine Six
• Robert M. Cook (Clare College, Cambridge)

Excavation dates:

• 1931, 15-27 June
• 1932, 29 May - 3 July

References

Lamb, W. 1930/31. "Antissa." Annual of the British School at Athens 31: 166-78.
—. 1931/32. "Antissa." Annual of the British School at Athens 32: 41-67.

Reviews of Thermi

Winifred Lamb, Excavations at Thermi in Lesbos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936.

• V. Gordon Childe, Man 36 (July 1936) 122-23. [JSTOR]
• TLS 5 September 1936, 710.
• D.B. Harden, 'Thermi in Lesbos', Classical Review 50, 6 (Dec. 1936) 232-33. [JSTOR]
• H. Philippart, AntClass 5 (1936) 440-41.
• Hetty Goldman, Classical Weekly 30, 18 (Mar. 22, 1937) 207-08. [JSTOR]
• V. Gordon Childe, Journal of Hellenic Studies 57, 1 (1937) 84-86. [JSTOR]
• S. Casson, Antiquity 11 (1937) 123-24.
• K. Bittel, Germania 21 (1937) 278-81.
• George E. Mylonas, The Classical Journal 33, 4 (Jan. 1938) 234-36. [JSTOR]
• Carl W. Blegen, American Journal of Archaeology 42, 4 (1938) 593-94. [JSTOR]
• Alan J.B. Wace, Antiquaries Journal 19 (1939) 98-99.

Winifred Lamb excavating on Lesbos

The dates for excavations and related work:

• 1928: late March and early April (looking for a suitable site); autumn (excavating at Methymna); mid-November (discovers the site of Thermi)
  
• 1929: 5 April - 1 June (Thermi)
• 1930: 31 March - 30 June (Thermi)
• 1931: 21 March - 11 June (Thermi); 15 June - 27 June (Antissa)
  
• 1932: 22 March - 5 July (on Lesbos); 29 May - 3 July (Antissa)
• 1933: January to July (working on Thermi material)