Lacey D. Caskey

Lacey Davis Caskey (born October 22, 1880 in Honesdale , Pennsylvania , † May 20, 1944 in Wellesley , Massachusetts ) was an American classical archaeologist .

Lacey Caskey was the son of the clergyman Taliaferro F. Caskey, who worked as a chaplain in Dresden , where he grew up from 1882 to 1897 and attended the English school. He studied Classical Studies at Yale University ( BA 1901). He then received a scholarship from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens .

In 1904/05 he briefly taught Greek and Latin as an instructor at Yale University and was again active in Athens as secretary of the American School of Classical Studies from 1905 to 1908. He was mainly concerned with Greek architecture and architectural inscriptions, for example he worked on a dictionary of Greek architectural terms, which was not completed, however. Together with Heinrich Lattermann , he won the award task of the Lamey Foundation of the University of Strasbourg to critically appreciate the building inscriptions of the Erechtheion . In 1912 he received his doctorate from Yale University with a thesis on these inscriptions.

In 1908 he returned to the USA and became assistant curator at the antiques department of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston under Arthur Fairbanks . From 1912 until his death in 1944 he was head of the department. At the museum in Boston, his main task was the processing and publication of the museum's collection of antiquities, which was built up by the dealers Edward P. Warren (1860–1928) and John Marshall (1862–1928). His catalog of the Museum's Attic vases, which he worked on together with John D. Beazley , is of particular importance .

His son John L. Caskey (1908–1981) was also a classical archaeologist.

Fonts (selection)

• The building bill of the Erechtheion for the year 409/8 BC Chr. In: Communications of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, Department Athenian Vol 36, 1911, pp 317-343 (= German version of the dissertation)..
• Geometry of Greek Vases. Attic vases in the Museum of Fine Arts Analyzed According to the Principles of Proportion discovered by Jay Hambidge (= Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Communications to the Trustees Vol. 5). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1922 Digitized .
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Catalog of Greek and Roman Sculpture . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1925.
• u. a .: The Erechtheum. Measured, drawn and restored by Gorham P. Stevens . Text by Lacey Davis Caskey, Harold North Fowler , James Morton Paton , Gorham Philipps Stevens, edited by James Morton Paton. Text and chalkboard. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1927.
• with John D. Beazley : Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 3 volumes. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Oxford University Press, London 1931; 1954; 1963 ( digitized ).

literature

• William G. Constable : Lacey D. Caskey. In: American Journal of Archeology. Vol. 48, 1944, pp. 275-276.

Web links

• Lacey D. Caskey in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Estate in the American School of Classical Studies