Olga Palagia - Samothracian Connections: Essays In Honor Of James R. Mc Credie

Published by
Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK

Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2010

ISBN 978-1-84217-970-3
EPUB ISBN: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Samothracian connections : essays in honor of James R. McCredie / edited by by Olga Palagia and Bonna D. Wescoat.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-84217-970-3 (hbk.)
1. Samothrace Island (Greece)--Antiquities. 2. Sanctuary of the Great Gods (Greece) 3. Excavations (Archaeology)--Greece
-Samothrace Island. 4. Island archaeology--Greece--Samothrace Island. 5. Art, Greek--Greece--Samothrace Island--History. 6.
Architecture, Greek--Greece--Samothrace Island--History. 7. Alexandria (Egypt)--Antiquities. 8. Phlorina (Greece)--Antiquities.
9. McCredie, James R. 10. Classicists--United States--Biography. I. Palagia, Olga. II. Wescoat, Bonna D. III. McCredie, James
R.
DF261.S3S26 2010
939.11--dc22

2010033760

Front cover: Sanctuary of the Great Gods, looking north.
Back cover: Jim McCredie and Sylvester.
(Photos Bonna D. Wescoat)

Printed in Great Britain by
Short Run Press, Exeter

Editors Preface

Our honoree, James (Jim) R. McCredie, was born on New Years Eve in Chicago, and grew up in Elgin, Illinois. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University. He received his PhD from Harvard as well. As a graduate student he participated in field seasons at Gordion and Sardis in Turkey, and Porto Rafti, Attica, in Greece. An appropriate prelude to what became his lifes work on Samothrace was his participation in the excavation of the 3rd-century B.C. Ptolemaic military camp at Koroni in Attica and the subsequent publication of his dissertation, Fortified Military Camps in Attica (Hesperia Supplement XI, 1966). This monograph is a pioneering contribution to the history and archaeology of Athens and Attica in the 3rd century B.C. It revised the history of the Chremonidean War and occasioned the down-dating of Attic black glaze pottery by about twenty years.

In 1962 McCredie transferred his commitment to the northern Aegean, where he joined the Samothracian team first as field director for Phyllis Williams Lehmann. In 1966 he became director. Over the course of nearly half a century of research he has contributed to the discovery and study of the most significant aspects of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace.

McCredie taught classical archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York from 1963 until his appointment as director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1969, a post he held until 1977. In 1978 he returned to the Institute of Fine Arts as Professor, and became its director from 1983 to 2002. He trained several generations of graduate students of art, archaeology and conservation, both in the classroom and on Samothrace. Under his directorship the Institute experienced a veritable golden age of Greek archaeology, when a brilliant cast of Institute professors, curators of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and visiting European scholars offered seminars on a wide range of subjects. The American School of Classical Studies, the Institute of Fine Arts and the Samothrace excavations have profited from his sharp mind, his generosity, his organizational skills and the inspiration he provided to younger colleagues and students. The number of students and colleagues who participated in research and excavations during McCredies tenure as director at Samothrace is striking testimony to his reach across the field of classical archaeology. Their names appear at the end of this volume. McCredies long involvement with the Institute of Fine Arts, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and with the Samothrace excavations are discussed in separate essays of this volume.

In addition to being an honorary citizen of Samothrace, honorary member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, and the recipient of a gold medal of the Pan-Samothracian Hearth of Athens, McCredie holds an honorary degree from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The volume in hand is a collection of essays on the archaeology and epigraphy of Samothrace, Macedonia and Alexandria by colleagues and pupils paying tribute to McCredies lifetime of devotion to the Sanctuary of the Great Gods and the influences that shaped it. The authors have all worked with McCredie in some capacity and are indebted to him for his guidance and wisdom. The editors offer him this volume in token of appreciation and affection, hoping that it will serve to illuminate larger issues as well as some less wellknown aspects of the archaeology of Samothrace that became more accessible thanks to his efforts and to those of his collaborators for over half a century.

The editors wish to thank Irene Romano for her support, Brenda Phifer Schrobe and Mary-Elizabeth Mitchell for their help, and Rachel Foulk and Susan Blevins for their assistance in assembling the manuscript. The publication of this volume was made possible thanks to the sponsorship of Charles K. Williams, Alan Boegehold and anonymous donors. We thank David Brown for agreeing to publish it in his series.

The papers follow the guidelines and abbreviations of Hesperia.

Olga Palagia and Bonna D. Wescoat

Contributors

Ioannis Akamatis

Department of Archaeology and the History of Art

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Kevin Clinton and Nora Dimitrova

Cornell University, Department of Classics

120 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853

Sheila Dillon

Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies

Box 90764

Duke University

Durham, NC 27708-0764

Jasper Gaunt

Michael C. Carlos Museum

Emory University

Atlanta, GQ 30322

Stephen Koob

The Corning Museum of Glass

One Museum Way, Corning, NY 14830

Clemente Marconi

Institute of Fine Arts

1 E. 78th Street

New York, NY 10021

Dimitris Matsas

Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities

Archaeological Museum

GR-691 00 Komotini, Greece

Carol C. Mattusch

Department of History and Art History, 3G1

George Mason University

4400 University Drive

Fairfax, VA 220304444

Mary B. Moore

Professor of Art History, Emerita

Hunter College-CUNY

Olga Palagia

Department of Archaeology and Art History

The University of Athens

GR-157 84 Athens, Greece

Robert L. Pounder

Vassar College

Department of Classics

Poughkeepsie, NY 12604

Irene Bald Romano

American School of Classical Studies at Athens

68 Charlton Street

Princeton, NJ 08540

Susan I. Rotroff

Department of Classics

Campus Box 1050

Washington University in Saint Louis

Saint Louis, MO 63130

Patricia Rubin

Institute of Fine Arts

1 E. 78th Street

New York, NY 10021

R. R. R. Smith

The Classics Centre, Oxford University

66 St. Giles

Oxford, OX1 3LU

Amy A. Sowder

Department of Art and Design, Art History, Art Education

Towson University

1000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252

Bonna D. Wescoat