Oscar Broneer

Oscar Theodore Broneer (born December 28, 1894 in Bäckebo , Sweden ; died February 22, 1992 in Corinth , Greece ) was a Swedish-American classical archaeologist .

Oscar Broneer was the youngest son of a Swedish farmer and worked on his family's farm until 1913. He and his brother emigrated to the United States in 1913 . After a few years he attended Augustana College in Rock Island , Illinois , and received a Masters degree from the University of California, Berkeley . In 1927 he went to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens , where he taught archeology. His own studies focused on the Odeon of Corinth - a work for which he received his doctorate from the University of Berkeley in 1931 - and the South Stoa of Corinth. During this time he also published the terracotta lamps from Corinth and was the first to systematize this type of find.

From 1940 to 1952 he headed the American School of Classical Studies and returned to Greece in this capacity as a member of the Red Cross immediately after the end of the Second World War . During this time he directed the film "Triumph Over Time", which was used to raise sponsorship funds for the American School. The University of Chicago , on whose behalf Broneer had already carried out some excavations in Greece, appointed him in 1948 to the chair of Classical Archeology and Classical Philology , where he taught until 1976.

When the University of Chicago began its research in ancient Isthmia , the venue of the Isthmian Games , in 1952, Broneer uncovered the steps of the Isthmian Temple of Poseidon on the first day of the excavations and thus discovered the central sanctuary of these Panhellenic Games . From that year Broneer took over the management of the excavation, which he held until 1967. During these years he not only uncovered the temple area with its altar, the surrounding buildings and the Roman Heroon , but also the theater , two stadiums used for games and the two so-called theater caves, which are probably to be addressed as meeting places and banquet rooms for cult associations. He published the results in three volumes between 1971 and 1977 together with a number of other authors.

In 1962, Broneer was awarded the Greek Order of the Phoenix for his services . The Archaeological Institute of America honored him with the institute's gold medal in 1969 . In memory of him, the American Academy in Rome awards the Oscar Broneer Traveling Fellowship as a Greece scholarship for its fellows .

Fonts (selection)

A bibliography on the works of Oscar Broneer up to 1973 can be found in: Hesperia . Volume 43, 1974, pp. 393-400 ( PDF ).

• Corinth. Results of Excavations. Volume 4, Part 2: Terracotta Lamps. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1930.
• Corinth. Results of Excavations. Volume 10: The Odeum. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1932.
• The Lion Monument at Amphipolis. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1941.
• Corinth. Results of Excavations. Volume 1, Part 4: The South Stoa and Its Roman Successors. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1954.
• with others: Isthmia. Volume 1: Temple of Poseidon. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1971.
• with others: Isthmia. Volume 2: Topography and architecture. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1973.
• with others: Isthmia. Volume 3: Terracotta lamps. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton 1977.

literature

• Elizabeth R. Gebhard : Oscar Theodore Broneer, 1894-1992. In: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 96, 1992, pp. 543-546.

Web links

• Biography in the Dictionary of Art Historians