British School at Athens
Encyclopedia
The British School at Athens (BSA) is one of the 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes in Athens
, Greece
.
, but in recent years, it has broadened that focus to all areas of Greek Studies. For example, it is has made notable contributions in the fields of epigraphy
and modern Greek history
.
The BSA's activities include a regular programme of lectures and seminars, a series of scholarships and bursaries, Athens-based courses for undergraduates, postgraduates and teachers, as well as archaeological fieldwork.
in Crete
, including one of the island's main archaeological libraries.
During its long history, the BSA has been involved in a multitude of archaeological projects, including surveys
in Laconia
, Boeotia
, Methana
(Argolid), and in the islands of Ithaca
(Ionian islands
), Kea
, Melos, Kythera (Cyclades
), Chios
(North Aegean
) and Crete
(Ayiopharango Survey, Ayios Vasilios Survey, Knossos
Survey, Praisos Survey) and excavations at Nea Nikomedeia, Sitagroi
, Servia and Assiros
(Greek Macedonia), Lefkandi
(Euboia), Emborio and Kato Phana (Chios
), Perachora
(Corinthia
), Mycenae
(Argolid), Sparta
(Laconia
), Phylakopi (Melos), Keros
(Cyclades
), as well as in Crete
at Knossos
, Karphi, Praisos, Debla, Trapeza Cave, Atsipades Korakias
, Psychro
, Myrtos
, Petsofas
and Palaikastro.
, was admitted to the British School at Athens under Director Alan John Bayard Wace for the 1913-1914 session, along with her friend Evelyn Radford with whom she had attended Newnham College, Cambridge
. The trip they took to the Balkans during the session was published in 1917 as A Ride Through the Balkans: On Classic Ground with a Camera . Agnes Conway married architect-archaeologist George Horsfield
in 1932.
† Died in office
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
General information
The School was founded in 1886 as the fourth such institution in Greece. For most of its existence, it focused on supporting, directing and facilitating British-based research in Classical Studies and ArchaeologyArchaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, but in recent years, it has broadened that focus to all areas of Greek Studies. For example, it is has made notable contributions in the fields of epigraphy
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
and modern Greek history
History of modern Greece
The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832 after the Greek War of Independence to the present day.- Background :In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire...
.
The BSA's activities include a regular programme of lectures and seminars, a series of scholarships and bursaries, Athens-based courses for undergraduates, postgraduates and teachers, as well as archaeological fieldwork.
Facilities
Its facilities include one of the most important Classical and archaeological libraries in Greece (over 60,000 volumes), and the Fitch laboratory, the oldest archaeometric laboratory in Greece. The BSA also operates a branch at KnossosKnossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, including one of the island's main archaeological libraries.
Archaeological fieldwork
Archaeological field survey
Archaeological field survey is the method by which archaeologists search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past human cultures across a large area...
in Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
, Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
, Methana
Methana
Methana is a town and a former municipality on the Peloponnese peninsula, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....
(Argolid), and in the islands of Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
(Ionian islands
Ionian Islands
The Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e...
), Kea
Kea (island)
Kea , also known as Gia or Tzia , Zea, and, in Antiquity, Keos , is an island of the Cyclades archipelago, in the Aegean Sea, in Greece. Kea is part of the Kea-Kythnos peripheral unit. Its capital, Ioulis, is inland at a high altitude and is considered quite picturesque...
, Melos, Kythera (Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
), Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
(North Aegean
North Aegean
The North Aegean is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It comprises the islands of the north-eastern Aegean Sea, except for Samothrace, which belongs to the region of East Macedonia and Thrace, and Imbros and Tenedos which belong to Turkey....
) and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
(Ayiopharango Survey, Ayios Vasilios Survey, Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
Survey, Praisos Survey) and excavations at Nea Nikomedeia, Sitagroi
Sitagroi
Sitagroi is a village and a former municipality in the Drama peripheral unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Prosotsani, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 5,266 . The seat of the municipality was in Fotolivos...
, Servia and Assiros
Assiros
Assiros is a village and a former municipality in the Thessaloniki regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lagkadas, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 3,861 ....
(Greek Macedonia), Lefkandi
Lefkandi
Lefkandi is a coastal village on the island of Euboea. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is located on a promontory overlooking the Euripos, with small bays...
(Euboia), Emborio and Kato Phana (Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
), Perachora
Heraion of Perachora
The Heraion of Perachora was a sanctuary of the goddess Hera situated in a small cove of the Corinthian gulf at the end of the Perachora peninsula. In addition to a temple of Hera of unusual construction and antiquity, the remains of a number of other structures have also been found, including a...
(Corinthia
Corinthia
Corinthia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated around the city of Corinth, in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula.-Geography:...
), Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
(Argolid), Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
(Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
), Phylakopi (Melos), Keros
Keros
Keros is an uninhabited Greek island in the Cyclades about southeast of Naxos. Administratively it is part of the community of Koufonisi. It has an area of and its highest point is...
(Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
), as well as in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
at Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
, Karphi, Praisos, Debla, Trapeza Cave, Atsipades Korakias
Atsipades
Atsipades is a modern village and an archaeological site of a Minoan peak sanctuary in western Crete.-Geography:Atsipades is about 20km south of the modern town of Rethymnon...
, Psychro
Psychro
Psychro Cave is an ancient Minoan sacred cave in the Lasithi district of eastern Crete. Psychro is associated with the Diktaean Cave, the putative site of Zeus' birth...
, Myrtos
Myrtos
Myrtos is a coastal village in the west of the municipality of Ierapetra, in the prefecture of Lasithi on the island of Crete in Greece. It is located from Ierapetra, the most southern town of Europe and from Agios Nikolaos, on the road to Viannos...
, Petsofas
Petsofas
Petsofas is the archaeological site of a Minoan peak sanctuary in eastern Crete.-Archaeology:Among the ubiquitous human and animal figurines found in peak sanctuaries, Petsofas uniquely has clay figurines of weasels and tortoises. Some Petsophas cylinder seals bear a male figure resembling...
and Palaikastro.
History of the BSA
Agnes ConwayAgnes Conway
Agnes Ethel Conway was a British historian and archaeologist who worked in the Middle East from 1929-1936. She was noted for her work with her husband George Horsfield at Petra and Kilwa, and produced detailed studies of the history of her father's castle, Allington, in Kent which had been owned...
, was admitted to the British School at Athens under Director Alan John Bayard Wace for the 1913-1914 session, along with her friend Evelyn Radford with whom she had attended Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...
. The trip they took to the Balkans during the session was published in 1917 as A Ride Through the Balkans: On Classic Ground with a Camera . Agnes Conway married architect-archaeologist George Horsfield
George Horsfield
George Horsfield was a British architect and archaeologist. He was Chief Inspector of Antiquities in Transjordan from 1928-1936. Horsfield began the initial clearance and conservation of Jerash in 1925, and excavated at Petra with his future wife, Agnes Conway in 1929.- Personal life :George...
in 1932.
Directors of the BSA
- 1886 F. C. PenroseFrancis PenroseFrancis Cranmer Penrose FRS was an English rower, architect, archaeologist and astronomer.-Early life:...
- 1887 E. A. GardnerErnest Arthur GardnerErnest Arthur Gardner was an English archaeologist.Ernest Arthur Gardner was educated at the City of London school and Caius College, Cambridge...
- 1895 C. Harcourt Smith
- 1897 D. G. HogarthDavid George HogarthDavid George Hogarth was a British archaeologist and scholar associated with T. E. Lawrence and Arthur Evans.-Archaeological career:...
- 1900 R. C. BosanquetRobert Carr BosanquetRobert Carr Bosanquet was a British archaeologist, operating in the Aegean and Britain and teaching at the University of Liverpool from 1906 to 1920 as the first holder of the Chair of Classical Archaeology there ....
- 1906 R. M. DawkinsRichard MacGillivray DawkinsRichard MacGillivray Dawkins was a British archaeologist. He was associated with the British School at Athens, of which he became Director....
- 1913 A. J. B. WaceAlan WaceAlan John Bayard Wace was an English archaeologist.Wace was educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge...
- 1923 A. M. Woodward
- 1929 H. G. G PayneHumfry PayneHumfry Gilbert Garth Payne was an English archaeologist, director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens from 1929 to his death.-Personal:...
† - 1936 A. Blakeway†
- 1936 G. M. Young
- 1946 J. M. Cook
- 1954 M. S. F. Hood
- 1962 A. H. S. Megaw
- 1967 P. M. Fraser
- 1971 H. W. Catling
- 1989 E. B. French
- 1994 M. J. Price†
- 1995 R. A. Tomlinson
- 1996 D. J. Blackman
- 2002 A. J. M. Whitley
- 2007 C. A. Morgan
† Died in office