Poul Jørgen Riis

Poul Jørgen Riis (born May 26, 1910 in Aarhus ; died October 2008 ) was a Danish classical archaeologist and Etruscanologist .

Life

Poul Riis, son of the wine merchant Svenning Christian Poulsen Riis (1857–1927) and his wife Elisabeth Sophie Kirstine Jørgensen (1870–1955), began studying art history at the University of Copenhagen in 1928 , but switched to Classical Archeology in 1930, in which he worked in 1941 with the work Tyrrhenika: An Archaeological Study of the Etruscan Sculpture in the Archaic and Classical Periods . From 1938 he worked at the antiquities collection of the Danish National Museum , where he took over the position of inspector in 1940 and was head of the collection from 1941 to 1948. In 1949 he became professor at the newly established Institute for Classical Archeology at the University of Aarhus , but in 1956 he accepted an appointment at the University of Copenhagen, where he taught until 1975 as the successor to Knud Friis Johansen .

From 1932 to 1933 and from 1936 to 1937 Riis took part in the Carlsberg Foundation's expedition in Hama , Syria . He presented the results partly alone, partly together with his wife, the archaeologist Marie-Louise Buhl, from 1948 in the volumes of the Hama - fouilles et recherches de la Fondation Carlsberg (1931-1938) . From 1958 to 1963 he headed the archaeological research of the Carlsberg Foundation, of which he was a member of the board from 1957 to 1962, of the Phoenician Tell Sukas . He published the preliminary results as L'activité de la Mission archéologique danoise sur la côte phénicienne from 1959 to 1965, the final publication took place in the Sūkās volumes, of which he played a major role in volumes 1, 3, 6 and 10 or she wrote it myself.

In addition, he published popular science books on Etruscan art (1948) and on the art of classical antiquity (1972), on the methods of archeology (1949) and on Danish research in Hama (1987).

From 1953 Riis was a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences , from 1970 to 1975 its editor and from 1975 to 1981 its president. Guided by a strong interest in international cooperation in the field of classical archeology, Riis was the Danish representative at the Union Académique Internationale from 1971 , and from 1977 to 1980 a member of its Executive Committee. In 1974 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy . In 2000, Riis became the commemorative publication Between Orient and Occident on his 90th birthday . Dedicated to Studies in Honor of PJ Riis .

Fonts (selection)

• Tyrrhenica. An Archaeological Study of the Etruscan Sculpture in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1941.
• Can one have grave histories op af Jorden? I would like to discuss the folkevandringer and their sport. Branner & Korch, Copenhagen 1949.
• An introduction to Etruscan art. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1953.
• Archeology and classic art. Berlingske, Copenhagen 1972.
• Greeks in Phenicia. Zabern, Mainz 1982.
• Ḥamā. Danske arkæologers udgravninger i Syria 1930-38. Copenhagen 1987
• Etruscan Types of Heads. A Revised Chronology of the Archaic and Classical Terracottas of Etruscan Campania and Central Italy. Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1981.
• Topographical Studies in the Ǧabla Plain (= Publications of the Carlsberg expedition to Phenicia. Volume 13). Reitzel, Copenhagen 2004.
• Penetrators fra en anden verden. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 2004.
• Hama. Fouilles et recherches, 1931-1938. National Museum, Copenhagen:
  • Volume 1, 2 (with Marie-Louise Buhl): Bronze Age Graves in Ḥamā and its Neighborhood. 2007.
  • Volume 2, 2 (with Marie-Louise Buhl): Les objects de la période dite syro-hittite. 1990.
  • Volumes 2, 3: Les cimétières à crémation. 1948.
  • Volume 4, 2 (with Vagn Poulsen): Les verreries et poteries médiévales. 1957.
• Sūkās. Munksgaard, Copenhagen:
  • Volume 1: The North-east Sanctuary and the First Settling of Greeks in Syria and Palestine. 1970.
  • Volume 3 (with Henrik Thrane): The Neolithic Periods. 1974.
  • Volume 6: The Graeco-Phoenician cemetery and sanctuary at the southern harbor. 1979.
  • Volume 10: The Bronze and Early Iron Age Remains at the Southern Harbor. 1996.

literature

• Poul Jørgen Riis: Erindringer fra en anden verden. 2004.
• Flemming Gorm Andersen: Danish Contributions to Classical Scholarship, 1971-1991. A Bibliography. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 2004, pp. 759–761.

Web links

• Biography in Dansk biografisk leksikon (Danish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 24, 2020 .