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Cyrene Papers: The First Report. The Documents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Jaimee P. Uhlenbrock
Jaimee P. Uhlenbrock*
Affiliation:
Department of Art History, State University of New York
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Abstract

Over the course of the last nine years, a large number of documents have come to light that chronicle more fully American interest in Cyrenaica in the 1880s and in the first two decades of this century. The documents mainly pertain to the 1910–1911 archaeological excavation of Cyrene by Richard Norton on behalf of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Archaeological Institute of America, during the course of which Herbert Fletcher DeCou, staff epigrapher, was fatally shot. But the material also refers to hitherto unnoticed American visits to Cyrenaica for archaeological purposes in 1883 and 1887, as well as the first official American expedition in the spring of 1909. While some of these papers are already well known and also have been the source of several studies regarding the murder of DeCou, most of the material has remained largely unexplored by scholars interested in Cyrenaica. For this reason they are presented here with the expectation that future articles on specific aspects of the Cyrene papers will be forthcoming shortly.

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Type
Articles
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 29 , 1998 , pp. 97 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1985

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References

Notes

1. For access to these documents and for other assistance with this project I would like to thank John J. Herrmann, Jr., curator, and Mary Comstock, associate curator, Classical Department of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Maureen Melton, archivist, Museum Archive, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Mark Brown, archivist, John Hay Archive, Brown University, Providence; Mark Meister, director, Archaeological Institute of America; Pat McMahon, assistant archivist, Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum; the staff of the Pusey Library at Harvard University, Cambridge; the staff of the archives of Yale University, New Haven; the staff of the Michigan Historical Collections at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. I also would like to thank my assistant Traci Jean Priest, who patiently organised and listed the more than seven hundred documents that form the basis of this study.

2. Goodchild, R. D., ‘Death of an epigrapher: the killing of Herbert DeCou’, Michigan Quarterly Review VIII–3 (07 1969): pp. 149–154Google Scholar; id., ‘ A Hole in the Heavens’, in Libyan Studies. Select Papers of the Late R. G. Goodchild. London (1976), J. Reynolds, ed: 290–297.

3. Norton, R. ‘The excavations at Cyrene: first campaign, 1910–1911’, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America II: pp. 141–163Google Scholar.

4. ‘The ruins at Messa’, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America II, 1910–1911: 135–137Google Scholar.

5. ‘From Benghazi to Cyrene’, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America II, 1910–1911: 57–67Google Scholar.

6. See note 3 above: 155–157, 166–167 (C. Densmore Curtis); see also Bacchielli, L., ‘Un santuario di frontiera, fra polis e chora’, Libyan Studies 25 (1994): 45–59Google Scholar; Bacchielli, L., Micheli, M. E., Santucci, A., Uhlenbrock, J., Il Santuario delle Nymphiai Chthonai a Cirene. Il Sito e le Terrecotte, Rome, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

7. See note 2 above.

8. See note 5 above.

9. Hogarth, D. G., Accidents of an Antiquary's Life, London (1910)Google Scholar: preface and 123–141, reprinted in Hogarth, D. G., The Wandering Scholar, London (1925): 210–230Google Scholar.

10. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

11. Harvard Class Reports, Class of 1881.

12. ‘Researches in the Cyrenaica: with some account of its history since the decline of the Empire’, V (1884): 31–53Google Scholar.

13. Ibid: 44.

14. Archaeological Institute of America Archives, Boston.

15. Ibid.

16. May 19, 1883 (Archaeological Institute of America Archives, Boston).

17. Annual Report of the Archaeological Institute of America, 1884: 40Google Scholar.

18. Minutes of the Special Executive Committee of the Boston Society of the Archaeological Institute of America (Archaeological Institute of America Archives, Boston).

19. Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee, Archaeological Institute of America, January 12, 1884 (Archaeological Institute of America Archives, Boston).

20. Outlined in the Archaeological institute of America. Eighth Annual Report (1886-1887) ‘Report of the Council’: 40.

21. Archaeological Institute of America Archives, Boston.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. The Nation, 10 28, 1886: 351Google ScholarPubMed.

26. Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

27. Bulletin of the Archaeological institute of America I: 250Google Scholar.

28. The Eastern Libyans, London (1914)Google ScholarPubMed.

29. Page 25.

30. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

31. Letter from Francis Kelsey to James Loeb, Boston, June 26, 1909 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

32. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

33. Letter from Francis Kelsey to Gardiner Lane, Ann Arbor, January 16, 1909 (Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor).

34. Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

35. Letter from David Hogarth to Arthur Fairbanks, Forest Row, December 24, 1908 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

36. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

37. Letter from Richard Norton to Arthur Fairbanks (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

38. March 19, 1909 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

39. The Bates expedition is also discussed in an article by White, D. ‘Stranger in a strange land: the untold story of the 1909 Bates expedition to Cyrene’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 35 (1998) forthcomingCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. Cyrene Expedition 1. 2nd Report of M.F.A.—Archaeological Institute of America Expedition to Cyrene. June 17, 1909: 15 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

41. Letter from Arthur Fairbanks to Francis Kelsey, Boston, July 9, 1909 (Michigan Historical Collection, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor).

42. Archaeological Institute of America Archive, Boston.

43. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

44. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

45. Rosenbaum, E., Cyrenaican Portrait Sculpture, London (1960): nos. 156, 174Google Scholar; Beschi, L., ‘Divinità funeraria’, Annuario 47–48 (1972): nos. 4, 33, 36, 153aGoogle Scholar.

46. ‘Inscriptions from the Cyrenaica’, AJA 17 (1913): 157–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47. Neg. nos. 11. 468–11.473 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston). This is Cassel's tomb N 31, in reality a double tomb, see Cassel, J., ‘The Cemeteries of Cyrene’, PBSR XXIII (1955): 26Google Scholar.

48. Neg. nos. 11.464, 11.463 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

49. Neg. nos. 11.465–11.467 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

50. Neg. no. 11.462 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

51. Neg. no. 11.439 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

52. Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America II–2 (03, 1911): 57–67Google Scholar.

53. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

54. Boston Herald, September 19, 1911.

55. Letter from Richard Norton to Arthur Fairbanks, June 2, 1911 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

56. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Letter from Mitchell Carroll, secretary of the Archaeological Institute of America, Washington, DC to Arthur Fairbanks, October 9, 1911 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

61. Letter from Mitchell Carroll to Arthur Fairbanks, October 11, 1911 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

62. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

63. Attachment to letter from P. C. Knox, Department of State, Washington D. C, to Mitchell Carroll (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

64. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

65. Ibid.

66. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston. This statement has already been noted by Goodchild, R. G., ‘Death of an epigrapher’ (see note 2 above): 153Google Scholar.

67. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

68. Letter from D. G. Hogarth to Francis Kelsey, November 26, 1911 (Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston).

69. Museum of Fine Arts Archive, Boston.

70. Wilson, H. L. ‘Report of the Vice-President’, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America III–1, 12 1911 (1911-1912): 203Google Scholar.

71. ‘Report of the President’, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America IV, 06–September 1913: 11Google Scholar.