John Myres

Sir John Linton Myres OBE FBA FRAI (3 July 1869 in Preston – 6 March 1954 in Oxford) was a British archaeologist and academic, who conducted excavations in Cyprus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[1]

For his son, John Nowell Linton Myres, also a British archaeologist, see Nowell Myres. For the British radio executive, consultant and presenter, see John Myers (radio executive).

Life

Myres was the son of the Rev. William Miles Myres and his wife, Jane Linton, and was educated at Winchester College. He graduated B.A. at New College, Oxford in 1892.[2] During the same year he was a Craven Fellow at the British School at Athens with which he excavated at the Minoan sanctuary of Petsofas.[3] Myres became the first Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, at the University of Oxford, in 1910, having been Gladstone Professor of Greek and Lecturer in Ancient Geography, University of Liverpool from 1907.[4] He contributed to the British Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series that was published during the Second World War, and to the noted 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910–1911).

Myers was also a member of the Folklore Society and served as its President between 1924 and 1926.[5] Later he became president of the Royal Anthropological Institute between 1928 and 1931.[6] And finally president of the Hellenic Society between 1935 and 1938.[7] Additionally, he was the founder of the journal Man and its first editor from 1901 to 1903.[7]

His work in Cyprus spanned several decades. With the German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter he published the first catalogue of the Cyprus Museum. In 1894 he participated with the British Museum's excavations at Amathus; he also excavated for the British School at Athens, with the assistance of the Cyprus Exploration Fund, various sites such as the Bronze Age site of Ayia Paraskevi, Kalopsida, Laxia tou Riou and Kition. Myres gave his share of the finds to the University of Oxford where it is a large part of the Cypriot collection of the Ashmolean Museum .[8] Myres Archive is located in the Ashmolean Museum.[9]

Additionally, he performed excavations at Lapithos in 1913 with Leonard Halford Dudley Buxton. Furthermore, in 1914, he published a handbook of the Luigi Palma di Cesnola collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was an advisor during the drafting of the 1935 Antiquities Law and the initiation of the Department of Antiquities.[8]

According to Robert Ranulph Marett,[10]

Professor Myres, whilst he teaches Greek language and literature as the modern man would have them taught, and is a learned archaeologist to boot, yet can have no greater title to our respect than that, of many devoted helpers, he did the most to organize an effective school of Anthropology in the University of Oxford.

He was a major influence on the British-Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.[11]

At Oxford, Myres worked for the Director of Naval Intelligence.[12]

Works

References
  1. "MYRES, John Linton". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 1285.
  2. Boardman, John. "Myres, Sir John Linton". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35180. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. Dunbabin, T. J. (1954). "Obituary Sir John Myres: 1869-1954". The Annual of the British School at Athens. 49: 311–312. doi:10.1017/S0068245400012818. ISSN 0068-2454. JSTOR 30097000.
  4. "MYRES, John Linton". The International Who's Who in the World. 1912. p. 801.
  5. "Minutes of Meetings". Folklore. 35 (1): 1–7. March 1924. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1924.9719982. ISSN 0015-587X.
  6. Braunholtz, H. J.; Firth, Raymond (1939). "88. J. L. Myres: Past President of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Editor of 'Man.'". Man. 39: 97–98. doi:10.2307/2791529. ISSN 0025-1496. JSTOR 2791529.
  7. G., D. H. (1954). "J. L. Myres". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 74: 181–182. doi:10.1017/S0075426900079283. ISSN 0075-4269. JSTOR 627568.
  8. Brown, Ann (1986). "'I Propose to Begin at Gnossos': John Myres's Visit to Crete in 1893". The Annual of the British School at Athens. 81: 37–44. doi:10.1017/S0068245400020074. ISSN 0068-2454. JSTOR 30102890. S2CID 163351564.
  9. Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology Oxford. Highlights of the Annual Report August 2008 - July 2010 (PDF). University of Oxford. 2010. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-1-85444-257-4.
  10. Evans, Arthur; Lang, Andrew; Murray, Gilbert; Jevons, Frank Byron; Myres, John Linton; Fowler, William Warde (1908). "Preface by R. R. Marett". In Marett, R. R. (ed.). Anthropology and the Classics: Six lectures delivered before the University of Oxford. Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780790558226.
  11. "Vere Gordon Childe | Encyclopedia.com". encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  12. "War Service of Students of the School, 1939-1945". The Annual of the British School at Athens. 42: ix–xv. 1947. JSTOR 30096718.
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