This nicely produced volume contains ten articles (plus a short editorial introduction) based on papers delivered at a colloquium held in Athens in 2013 entitled ‘Carl and Elizabeth Blegen Remembered, Ploutarchou 9 Celebrated’. The latter was the neo-classical house in Kolonaki that Carl and Elizabeth Blegen, along with their friends Bert Hodge and Ida Thallon Hill, inhabited from 1929. Each contribution, arranged in a loosely chronological order, narrates an aspect of Blegen's life – archaeological, personal or both – but the multiple threads often intertwine and the same events appear from different angles, further enriching the whole. The collection offers a rounded picture of Blegen as a man and is a splendid example of how archival sources (generously illustrated), particularly those held in the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), can add rich details to seemingly well-known life stories. Blegen is not the sole protagonist in the narrative; other major figures in the archaeology of Greece from the 1910s to the 1970s appear, most prominently A.J.B. Wace, his close collaborator in constructing the pre-Mycenaean chronology of Greece. Another welcome aspect is the documentation of Blegen's friendship and collaboration with Greek archaeologists, especially Konstantinos Kourouniotis.

A short introduction situates the collection within a philosophy of biography which draws on both Virginia Woolf and Paul Ricoeur, after which V.-B. explores the less well-known aspects of Blegen's life: his early years up to the first years at the ASCSA and his career immediately after World War II. Two other contributions focus on his personal life, to the extent that this can be distinguished from his professional life: R. Pounder draws on archived correspondence to shed light on the unusual relationship between the Blegens and the Hodge Hills, while F. offers a ‘biography’ of 9 Ploutarchou Street, situating the occupants and the house – almost as if it was itself an actor – within the social and intellectual life of pre- and post-WWII Athens.

The remaining seven contributions concentrate on different aspects of Blegen's archaeological life. I. Tzonou-Herbst charts his early excavations in the Corinthia and Argolid, when he began his long and close friendship with Wace, a friendship documented by Y. Fappas through their correspondence. E. French, Wace's daughter, contributes a view of their encounters in the 1930s, when her father had just been appointed to the Laurence chair of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge. A third contribution involving Wace, with Arthur Evans ever present in the background, is that of Y. Galanakis, who offers a nuanced account of the differences Blegen and Wace shared with Evans's ‘Cretocentric’ interpretation of cultural developments in the second millennium b.c. Aegean. Blegen's pre-WWII excavations at Troy were followed by a more recent Cincinnati–Tübingen campaign, co-directed by the late M. Korfmann and B. Rose, who here succinctly presents Blegen's contribution to the history of this iconic site. Perhaps Blegen's most famous excavations were at the ‘Palace of Nestor’ in Messenia. Not surprisingly, they receive two contributions: N. Karadimas reviews the excavations' reception in the press – Greek and foreign – including the transcript (in both the original Greek and English translation) of a revealing interview Blegen gave in 1964, when in his late 70s, to the newspaper To Vima. In the final contribution, D., holder himself of the Blegen chair in Cincinnati, brings out new details from the archives about the drawn out process leading up to the excavations of 1939 that transformed the field with the first discovery on the mainland of Linear B clay tablets, a discovery that has echoes in other contributions.

The interwoven texture of the narratives should interest anyone seeking a fuller understanding of the development of Aegean archaeology – methodologically and institutionally – in its formative years, or those curious to learn more about the operation of the ASCSA, or, indeed, anyone simply seeking insight into the life of a leading figure in Greek archaeology of any generation.