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‘I Propose to Begin at Gnossos’1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Ann Brown
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Abstract

The evidence of John Myres's papers and letters in the Ashmolean Museum, and his unpublished memoirs entitled ‘Praeterita’, shows that he planned to conduct excavations at Knossos in 1893. They suggest the reasons which prompted these plans, and the circumstances which led to their abandonment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 81 , November 1986 , pp. 37 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1986

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References

Acknowledgements. Thanks are due to many people who have helped in the preparation of this note; in the first place to Sinclair Hood who suggested that it should be written and to Dr P. R. S. Moorey for granting me access to the J. L. Myres Letters in the Ashmolean archives and for his counsel; to Dr J. N. L. Myres for allowing me to make use of ‘Praeterita’ and his father's letters, and for his advice; and to Dr H. W. Catling, Dr J. Coulton, and Mr M. Vickers for their help in other ways.

2 Sir John Linton Myres (1869–1954) first visited Greece in 1891. His second visit in 1893 was followed by travels in Crete with Evans in 1895 and with Evans and Hogarth, then Director of the British School at Athens, in 1898. In 1903 he excavated at Petsofa, the hilltop site near Palaikastro in East Crete. From 1895 to 1907 he was a Student of Christ Church. After a short time as Professor of Greek at Liverpool, 1907–10, he returned to Oxford as Wykeham Professor of Ancient History. He was Chairman of the British School at Athens from 1934 to 1947. Dunbabin, T. J., Proceedings of the British Academy 41 (1955) 349–65Google Scholar; Boardman, J., DNB 1951–1960, 762–3.Google Scholar

3 John, Lord Craven of Ryton, left provision in his will of 1647 for the maintenance of poor scholars. The award changed over the years and by 1892 travelling fellowships had been instituted. Angela Burdett-Coutts, later Baroness Burdett-Coutts, gave the University of Oxford the William Pengelly geological collection in 1860, and founded two scholarships for ‘the study of Geology and Natural Science as bearing on Geology’, University of Oxford, First Supplement to the Historical Register of 1900 (1921).

4 I am extremely grateful to Dr J. N. L. Myres for allowing me to publish extracts from his father's memoirs and letters. ‘Praeterita’ written by Sir John Myres in old age has been transcribed by his grandson Dr M. T. Myres.

5 For a brief history of the Museum, see An Illustrated Guide to the Greek, Roman and Byzantine … Collections in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul (1968) 3–6.

6 AJA 11 (1896) 527.

7 T. A. B. Spratt, Travels and Researches in Crete (1865); R. Pashley, Travels in Crete (1837). For the earlier British travellers see Warren, P., ‘16th, 17th and 18th Century British Travellers in Crete’, K.Chron. 24 (1972) 65–92.Google Scholar

8 Letter from T. B. Sandwith to J. L. Myres, 7.12.1892. With kind permission of Mr M. Sandwith.

9 Letter from A. Biliotti to J. L. Myres, 5.2.1893. Reproduced with the permission of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

10 A. Milchhoefer, Die Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland (1883).

11 Myres, J. L., ‘Easter in a Greek Village’, Folklore 61 (1950) 203–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See Robert Southey, The Battle of Blenheim.

13 The collision of HMS Victoria and Camperdown off Tripoli on the coast of Syria on 22 June 1893, resulted in the loss of the Victoria with many hands, including the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tyron. A court martial found that the collision was due to an order given by Tyron.

14 In 1885 HMS Polyphemus, a torpedo ram, charged the boom, as an experiment, during annual manœuvres at Berehaven (Bearhaven), Bantry Bay. She triumphantly destroyed it. In 1886 she was commissioned for the Mediterranean. See Brassey, 's Naval Annual (1886) 124Google Scholar; MacDougal, P., Chatham Built Ships (1982) 23.Google Scholar I am most grateful to Mrs N. Scadding, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, for these references.

15 Myres, BCH 17 (1893) 629.Google Scholar The tablet from Petelia is in the British Museum, F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Jewellery in the British Museum (1911) no. 3155. Trifilli's tablets are now in the National Museum of Athens, Inscr. Cret. ii. 168Google Scholar, xii. 31.

16 Spanakis, S. G., K.Chron. 14 (1960) 271–307Google Scholar; Aposkitou, M., Kretologia 8 (1979) 81–94.Google Scholar

17 Petrie, W. M. F., ‘The Egyptian Bases of Greek History’ JHS 11 (1890) 276 pl. xiv.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Now in the Ashmolean Museum.

19 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, xv (1893–5) 351–6, dating the pottery to c. 2300 BC.

20 Letter from Professor Percy Gardner to J. L. Myres, 6.9.1893.

21 See p. 43.

22 Letter from J. L. Myres to A. Biliotti, 24.10.1893.

23 Introduction to Hood, Sinclair and Taylor, William, The Bronze Age Palace at Knossos (1981) 1f.Google Scholar

24 ‘Extracts from the letters of W. J. Stillman, respecting ancient sites in Crete’, Archaeological Institute of America: Appendix to the Second Annual Report of the Executive Committee (1880–1).

25 Boardman, , The Cretan Collection in Oxford (1961) nos. 383–430Google Scholar.

26 Hood and Taylor, op. cit. Myres, 's article appeared in The Antiquary 28 (1893) 110–12.Google Scholar

27 BCH 15 (1891) 452. The French claim caused some embarrassment in 1899 to D. G. Hogarth, Director of the British School at Athens, and M. Homolle, Director of the French School. Mentioned in The Ashmolean (Summer 1983).

28 Musée Impérial Ottoman. Catalogue des Sculptures grecques, romaines, byzantines et franques (Constantinople, 1893) and Monuments funéraires (Constantinople, 1893).

29 Letter (in Greek) from Dr J. Hazzidakis to J. L. Myres, 10/22.12.1893. The dates are those of the Julian Calendar which was in use in Crete, and the Gregorian Calendar.

30 Letter from J. L. Myres to A. Biliotti, 31.12.1893.

31 Myres, , ‘Excavations in Cyprus in 1894’, JHS 17 (1897) 134–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Myres gave his share of the finds to the University of Oxford where it now forms the nucleus of the Ashmolean Museum's Cypriot collection. He collaborated with Max Ohnefalsch-Richter in publishing a Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum (1899); in 1914 he published the Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); and he acted in an advisory capacity in drafting a new Antiquities Law and setting up the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus in 1935.

32 ‘A Mycenaean Military Road’ The Academy no. 1204 (1895).