Humfry Payne

Humfry Gilbert Garth Payne (born February 19, 1902 in Wendover , Buckinghamshire , † May 9, 1936 in Athens ) was an English classical archaeologist and director of the British School at Athens from 1929 until his death.

Humfry Payne was the only son of Edward John Payne, a historian at University College Oxford , and his wife Emma LH Pertz. His older sister was the astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin . Payne attended Westminster School , then Christ Church College , Oxford , where he completed his Classical Studies with excellent results. In 1926 he married the journalist Dilys Powell.

After completing his studies, he received research grants from Christ Church College and an assistant position at the Ashmolean Museum , which he used to study the archeology of the Mediterranean countries. In 1927 he won the Conington Prize for Classical Learning for his work on Greek vase painting . He partially controlled the work of John D. Beazley and Alan Blakeway , with whom he jointly published works on the Attic black-figure pottery by Naukratis . Then he studied and arranged the ceramic material from Corinth that was also there . He presented the results of this research in 1931 in the work " Necrocorinthia ", which established its fame in archaeological circles worldwide.

From 1927 to 1929 Payne spent the summers doing archaeological excavations in Crete in the area around Knossos . In recognition of this work, he became director of the British School at Athens in 1929 . In 1930 he initiated the excavations in Perachora , a settlement on the Geraneia peninsula in the Gulf of Corinth . The sanctuary and port facility were excavated from 1930 to 1933, 1939 and the 1960s. The results, mainly written by Payne, were published in the work “ Perachora. The sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia ”published in 1940 by Thomas J. Dunbabin .

Payne also did research on the Achaean sculptures found on the Acropolis in Athens in the 1880s and 1890s . Published in 1936 under the title “ Archaic marble sculpture from the Acropolis ”, it confirmed his scientific reputation, as he was able to bring together sculpture fragments such as the Rampin rider , which were widely scattered in various museums, and a new approach in researching archaic plastic and sculpture establish.

He died in 1936 at a staph infection in Evangelismos Hospital in Athens. He was buried in the cemetery of Agios Georgios in Mycenae . His gravestone bears the words “Don't weep for Adonis”.

He was married to the later writer and film critic Dilys Powell (1901-1995).

Fonts (selection)

• Necrocorinthia. A study of Corinthian art in the archaic period . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1931.
• Protocorinthian vase painting . Keller, Berlin 1933 (reprinted by Zabern, Mainz 1974).
• with Gerard Mackworth Young (Photos): Archaic marble sculpture from the Acropolis . Cresset Press, Manchester 1936.
• Perachora. Sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia. Excavations of the British School of Archeology at Athens 1930-1933 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1940 (Ed. By TJ Dunbabin).

literature

• Dilys Powell: The Traveller's Journey is Done , London 1943.
• Bibliografia di Humfry Payne , in: Humfry Payne: La scultura arcaica in marmo dell'Acropoli , Rome 1981, pp. 83-84.

Web links

• Literature by and about Humfry Payne in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dictionary of Art Historians
• Encyclopædia Britannica