Percy N. Ure

Percy Neville Ure (born May 10, 1879 in Stoke Newington , † April 3, 1950 in Reading ) was a British ancient historian and classical archaeologist . He was one of the best experts on ancient Boeotian ceramics.

Life

Ure studied ancient history, classical philology and archeology at Cambridge University from 1898 to 1902 . His focus was on ancient history. From 1903 to 1907 he worked as a lecturer in Greek at Cardiff University , where he was assistant to Ronald Montagu Burrows . With this he undertook his first excavation in the Boeotian Rhitsona in 1907 , which he continued alone in 1908. The purpose of his investigations was initially to clarify the topography of Thucydides . But at the same time it was the beginning of Ure's lifelong preoccupation with Boeotian art.

In 1908 Ure went to Leeds University as a lecturer . In 1911 he was appointed Professor of Classics at the newly founded University of Reading . In 1921 and 1922 he dug again in Rhitsona. In 1946 he retired. In February 1950, he was admitted to hospital with a heart condition from which he eventually succumbed.

Ures most important achievement was the exact research of Boeotian ceramics, the chronology of which he revolutionized. Through his international research and sifting activities, entire collections and countless individual items were introduced into a periodization that is still valid today. His own collection was also not insignificant. He founded the Ure Museum of Greek Archeology at the University of Reading, which his former student and future wife Annie Dunman Ure (1893-1976) was curator until 1976 .

Fonts (selection)

• Thucydides VI. The first part of the Sicilian Expedition. Edited for beginners in Greek . London 1906.
• The origin of the tyrannis . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 26, 1906, pp. 131-142.
• Black glaze pottery from Thitsona in Boeotia . London et al. 1913.
• The Greek renaissance . London 1921.
• The Origin of tyranny . Cambridge 1922.
• Sixth and fifth century pottery from excavations made at Rhitsona . London 1927.
• Boeotian Pottery of the Geometric and Archaic Styles, including developments and survivals of the V and IV centuries BC Paris 1927.
• Aryballoi & figurines from Rhitsona in Boeotia: an account of the early archaic pottery and of the figurines, archaic and classical, with supplementary lists of the finds of glass, beads and metal; from excavations made by R. M Burrows and PN Ure in 1907, 1908, 1909 and by PN and AD Ure in 1921 and 1922 . Cambridge 1934.
• Justinian and his age . Harmondsworth 1951.
• with Annie Dunman Ure: Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum - Great Britain 12: University of Reading 1 . London 1954.

literature

• An Address presented to Percy Neville Ure on his Seventieth Birthday. With a bibliography of his writings . Reading 1949.
• Andreas Rumpf : Percy Neville Ure † . In: Gnomon . Volume 22, 1950, pp. 318-319

Web links

• Victoria Sabetai : Ronald M. Burrows and Percy N. Ure in Boeotia (PDF file; 2.30 MB)
• The Ure Museum of Greek Archeology