W. Kendrick Pritchett

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William Kendrick Pritchett (born April 14, 1909 in Atlanta , † May 29, 2007 in Berkeley ) was an American classical philologist , epigraphist and ancient historian .

Life

Pritchett earned a bachelor's degree from Davidson College in 1929 and a master's from Duke University the following year . He then moved to Johns Hopkins University . From 1936 to 1942 he worked as a research assistant with the Greek epigrapher Benjamin Dean Meritt at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton . In 1942 he received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. PhD .

From 1942 to 1945 he served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II and was stationed in the South Pacific and Germany. Among other things, he collected material there on the German war crimes for the Nuremberg trials . He then returned to Princeton and a little later got a position as a lecturer at Muhlenberg College . In 1948 Pritchett became an Associate Professor of Greek Philology at the University of California, Berkeley . There he was appointed full professor in 1954 and held this position until his retirement in 1976. From 1966 to 1970 he headed the Department of Classical Philology at the University of Berkeley. Even in the decades after 1976 he continued to be active in research.

Pritchett was twice visiting professor ( Annual Professor ) at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and from 1960 to 1976 a member of its Managing Committee . In 1951 and 1955 he received a Guggenheim grant ; In 1951/1952 he held a research grant from the Fulbright program .

From 1942 Pritchett was married to Elizabeth Dow († 2000), sister of the archaeologist and epigrapher Sterling Dow , with whom he had a daughter.

Awards and honors

In 1974 Kendrick Pritchett was elected as a corresponding member of the British Academy . He was also a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy . In 1976 he received the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Philological Association for the second volume of his work "The Greek State at War" . After his retirement he was honored for his research and administrative achievements with the award "Berkeley Citation".

Davidson College, where Pritchett studied, made him an honorary doctorate in 1987 and donated a student award named after him, as did Duke University. At the University of California at Berkeley, where he worked for many years, a similar prize, also named after him, was donated, with which a student is awarded annually for outstanding achievements in studying ancient Greek . In addition, a graduate scholarship and an annual public lecture by a renowned visiting professor were named after him at Berkeley .

Researches

Pritchett's research extended to wide areas of Greek philology ( Graecistics ) and history. As a philologist, he conducted research on linguistic topics such as the grammar and syntax of the ancient Greek language, as well as on a wide range of literary topics, especially ancient historiography . In the historical field, he first presented several studies on calendar systems and chronological questions in Greek history (1940 and 1947); later he published various basic monographs on ancient Greek topography (8 volumes, 1965–1992) and military history (5 volumes, 1971–1991).

Further studies by Pritchett dealt with questions of the political and religious history of ancient Greece and especially with epigraphy . Among other things, he published some inscriptions that were found during excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens on the Agora of Athens . He pursued innovative approaches such as the inclusion of geological research results in epigraphic questions. As the first epigraphist he used for making of fives liquid latex instead of the traditional method is moist paper that prevails to this day. In the investigation of inscriptions as well as in his other topographical and historical studies, he was able to fall back on an exact knowledge of Greece, which he had acquired on various trips.

Pritchett co-founded the journal California Studies in Classical Antiquity , which later became the journal Classical Antiquity .

Fonts (selection)

  • with Benjamin D. Meritt : The Chronology of Hellenistic Athens. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1940.
  • The Five Attic Tribes after Kleisthenes. Dissertation, Baltimore 1943.
  • with Otto Neugebauer : The Calendars of Athens. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1947.
  • Studies in Ancient Greek Topography. 8 volumes, University of California Press, Berkeley et al. 1965–1992 (Volume 7 was published by JC Gieben, Amsterdam).
  • The Greek State at War. 5 volumes, University of California Press, Berkeley et al. 1971–1991.
  • The liar school of Herodotos. JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1993, ISBN 90-5063-088-X .
  • Essays In Greek History. JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1994, ISBN 90-5063-316-1 .
  • Thucydides' Pentekontaetia and Other Essays (= Archaia Hellas. Volume 1). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1995, ISBN 90-5063-487-7 .
  • Greek Archives, Cults, and Topography (= Archaia Hellas. Volume 2). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-5063-147-9 .
  • Pausanias Periegetes (= Archaia Hellas. Volume 6). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1998, ISBN 90-5063-518-0 .
  • Athenian Calendars and Ekklesias (= Archaia Hellas. Volume 8). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 90-5063-258-0 .
  • Ancient Greek Battle Speeches and a Palfrey (= Archaia Hellas. Volume 9). JC Gieben, Amsterdam 2002, ISBN 90-5063-298-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ W Kendrick Pritchett, on the British Academy website , accessed April 27, 2020.
  2. ^ W. Kendrick Pritchett: Liquid Rubber for Greek Epigraphy. In: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 56, Number 2, 1952, pp. 118-120. For this method see also the critical remarks in Werner Peek : Die epigraphische Praxis. In: Gerhard Pfohl (ed.): The study of Greek epigraphy. An introduction. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-534-04340-5 , pp. 38-61, here p. 49, and the practical explanations in Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead : The Study of Greek Inscriptions. 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, pp. 80 f.
personal data
SURNAME Pritchett, W. Kendrick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pritchett, William Kendrick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Graecist and epigrapher
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Atlanta
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 2007
Place of death Berkeley