Homer A. Thompson

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Homer Armstrong Thompson (born September 7, 1906 in Devlin, Ontario , † May 7, 2000 in Hightstown , New Jersey ) was an American classical archaeologist of Canadian origin. From 1947 to 1977 he was Professor of Classical Archeology at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton . He has made a name for himself above all as the excavator of the Agora of Athens and the Pnyx , the meeting place of the Athenian people's assembly.

life and career

After studying Classics at the University of British Columbia , which he graduated with a BA in 1925 and an MA in 1927, Thompson earned his PhD at the University of Michigan in 1929 . Here he met the epigraphist Benjamin Dean Meritt , on whose recommendation Thompson became a collaborator in the then newly planned excavations of the Agora of Athens. From 1931 he was first deputy director and then from 1945 acting director, before he was formally confirmed in this position in 1947. Until 1967 he remained in charge of this outstanding research project, to which he contributed numerous important publications. In 1934 he married his colleague Dorothy Burr (1900–2001), whom he had met on the Agora excavation.

Since 1933 Thompson was also active as an archaeologist at the University of Toronto and at the same time curator of the classical collections of the Royal Ontario Museum . A call as professor of classical archeology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton released him in 1947 largely from his teaching duties and allowed him to concentrate fully on his research on the Athens agora.

Homer A. Thompson was a member of the American Philosophical Society (since 1951), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1957) and a corresponding member of the British Academy since 1948 and of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences since 1961 and has received numerous international prizes and honors including the Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America in 1972 and the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies in 1991 .

Fonts (selection)

  • Buildings on the West Side of the Agora . In: Hesperia 6, 1937, pp. 1-226. ISSN  1553-5622
  • The Tholos of Athens and its Predecessors . Princeton 1940 ( Hesperia . Supplement Volume IV).
  • The Pedimental Sculpture of the Hephaisteion . In: Hesperia 18, 1949, pp. 230-268.
  • The Odeion in the Athenian Agora . In: Hesperia 19, 1950, pp. 31-141.
  • with Richard E. Wycherley: The Agora of Athens. The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center . Princeton 1972.
  • Athens Faces Advertisy . In: Hesperia 50, 1981, pp. 343-355.

literature

  • Nancy Bookidis (collaborator): Studies in Athenian Architecture, Sculpture, and Topography Presented to Homer A. Thompson . Princeton 1982 ( Hesperia . Supplementary Volume XX).
  • Susan I. Rotroff: Homer Armstrong Thompson . In: American Journal of Archeology 105, 2001, pp. 99-100. ISSN  0002-9114

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Homer A. Thompson. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  2. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed August 7, 2020 .
  3. ^ Members of the HAdW since it was founded in 1909. Homer A. Thompson. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, accessed on June 10, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Thompson, Homer A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thompson, Homer Armstrong (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American classical archaeologist of Canadian origin
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Devlin, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 2000
Place of death Hightstown