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Panagiotis Stamatakis

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Panagiotis Stamatakis (Template:Lang-el) (c.1840[note 1]-1885) (sometimes anglicised as Panayotis or Stamatakes) was a Greek archaeologist. He is noted particularly for his role in supervising the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae in 1876, and his role in recording and preserving the archaeological remains at the site.

Stamatakis was a leading figure of his day in Greek archaeology, being promoted to the country's highest archaeological office (Ephor-General) in 1884. In the wider scholarly community, however, his work and significance was largely forgotten after his death.[note 2] Modern reassessment of the excavations at Mycenae, fuelled in large part by the rediscovery in the early 21st century of Stamatakis' notebooks from the site,[5][6] led in turn to a re-evaluation of his importance to the Mycenae excavations and to archaeology more generally: he has been described as 'one of the great Greek archaeologists of the nineteenth century'.[7]

Life and career

Stamatakis was born in the village of Varvitsa in Laconia. Almost nothing is known of his early life: he certainly had no university education, and appears to have been largely-self taught in archaeology.[8]

In January 1866, he was hired as an assistant to Panagiotis Eustratiadis,[9] the Ephor (overseer) General of Antiquities, and sworn in as a civil servant on 15 July.[10] His first task was to record antiquities held in private collections,[11] to enable the Greek Archaeological Service to gain an understanding of the number and condition of ancient finds unearthed to date.[12]

In 1871, then working as an assistant in the Archaeological Office of the Ministry of Education,[13] Stamatakis was invited by the Archaeological Society of Athens to become a travelling ephor for the society,[note 3] known as an 'apostle'.[11] A major part of his role as an 'apostle' was to persuade citizens to surrender illegally-excavated antiquities to the state. His energetic approach to these efforts, later described as 'tireless in his work, unyielding in the discharge of his duties and unshakeable in the matters of ethics',[11] led to the establishment of public archaeological collections throughout Greece, and the basis for many future archaeological museums,[11] including those at Sparta,[16] Thebes and Chaeronea.[17]

On 3 March 1875, he assumed the post of ephor of the Argolid[18] with the Greek Archaeological Service,[10] which was at that time expanding its ranks to include a number of such officers.[19]

During his career, Stamatakis travelled and excavated widely in Greece. He campaigned in Boeotia against the illicit antiquities trade from 1871 onwards,[19] carrying out excavations in 1873-1875 at Tanagra following the illegal looting of the necropolis there in the early 1870s.[20] His excavations brought to light various funerary reliefs and inscriptions.[20] In Attica, he excavated two Mycenaean chamber tombs at Spata near Athens. He also worked in the Aegean islands, producing the first archaeological maps of Delos and Mykonos.[21] From 1872 to 1873, he stayed on Delos to supervise the excavation of the French School at Athens at the sanctuary of Heracles, directed by J. Albert Lebègue.[22]

Excavations at Mycenae, 1876

Main article: Mycenae § Excavation

Throughout the 1870s, Heinrich Schliemann tried unsuccessfully to gain various permits to excavate in Greece.

Good source here - Vasilikou 2011:

c. p29 - background to Schliemann's excavations in Greece, and his membership of the Athens Archaeological Society p50: 'the excavation permit and the bounds of the excavations'

Relationship with Schliemann

No securely-identified image of Stamatakis survives, and it has been suggested that Schliemann had him edited out of an illustration published in Mycenae (1878) as a consequence of their poor relationship.[11]

After Mycenae

In 1877, he discovered and excavated a tholos tomb at the site of the Heraion of Argos.[23] His finds in Argos formed the basis for the early collection of the Archaeological Museum of Argos, opened in 1878.[24]

In 1879 he excavated the burial mound of the Theban 'Sacred Band' on the battlefield of Chaeronea, and in 1882 he began the excavation of the polyandrion of the Thespian warriors who died at the Battle of Delium in 424 BCE.[17] Most of his archaeological work remained unpublished at the time of his death:[11] he also carried out excavations at Delphi, Phthiotis and throughout Greece.

In 1881, he is said to have carried out the clearing of a well on the acropolis of Daulis in Phocis, uncovering a number of Classical vase fragments.[25]

In 1884, on the retirement of Panagiotis Eustratiadis,[26] he was promoted to Ephor-General, the highest office in the Greek Archaeological Service. However, he died less than a year later, on 19 March 1885, of malaria: contemporary newspapers reported that he had contracted the disease during his excavations at Chaeronea.[10]. He was buried in the First Cemetery of Athens, in a tomb whose headstone was designed by Wilhelm Dörpfeld, a German architect and archaeologist who had assisted Schliemann with his excavations at Troy. Some time afterwards, however, the tomb was demolished, apparently because Stamatakis lacked any living descendants to whom ownership of it could be passed.[10] However, it has been noted that several surviving 19th-century graves in the First Cemetery belong to people without living heirs, and suggested on that basis that 'the municipality of Athens considered the grave to be rather unimportant'.[27]

Notes

  1. ^ Stamatakis' precise date of birth is not known: Petrakos approximates it to 1830,[1] Traill gives it as 'about 1840',[2] while his contemporary Minos Lappas, who wrote his eulogy, said that he devoted his life to archaeology 'from the age of twenty'. Since he began working for the Ephor General of Antiquities in 1866, this would support a birth date no later than 1846.[3]
  2. ^ A 2006 study reassessing his impact on the excavations of Mycenae called him an 'underrated and elusive figure'.[4]
  3. ^ Since its foundation in 1834, the Greek Archaeological Service had employed only one member of staff, plus occasional assistants.[14] The Archaeological Society of Athens, formed in 1837, aimed to support the Greek state in matters of antiquities management and protection, but remained (and remains) distinct from the Greek Archaeological Service and the Greek government.[15]

References

  1. ^ Petrakos 2011: p. 15
  2. ^ Traill 1993: p79
  3. ^ Petrakos 2005: p117
  4. ^ Prag et al 2006: p234
  5. ^ Konstantinidi-Syvridi 2020, pp. 279–280.
  6. ^ Prag et al. 2009, p. 233.
  7. ^ Traill 1993, p. 293.
  8. ^ Traill 1993, p. 205.
  9. ^ Konstantinidi-Syvridi 2020, p. 277.
  10. ^ a b c d Athens Archaeological Society 2019.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Konstantinidi-Syvridi & Paschalidis 2019, p. 112.
  12. ^ Zachariou 2013, p. 15.
  13. ^ Petrakos 2007, p. 23.
  14. ^ Petrakos 2007: pp.22-23
  15. ^ Petrakos 2007: p.22
  16. ^ Raftopoulou 1998, p. 140.
  17. ^ a b Archaeological Museum of Thebes 2016.
  18. ^ Dickinson 1976, p. 161.
  19. ^ a b Petrakos 2007, p. 22.
  20. ^ a b Marchand 2011, p. 207.
  21. ^ Prag et al. 2009, p. 235.
  22. ^ Vasilikou 2006, pp. 17–21.
  23. ^ Antonaccio 1992, p. 100.
  24. ^ Konstantinidi-Syvridi 2020, pp. 277–278.
  25. ^ Wace & Thompson 1912, p. 26.
  26. ^ Petrakos 2011, p. 15.
  27. ^ Antoniadis & Kouremenos 2021, p. 194.

Bibliography

  • Antoniadis, Vyron; Kouremenos, Anna (2021). "Selective Memory and the Legacy of Archaeological Figures in Contemporary Athens: The Case of Heinrich Schliemann and Panagiotis Stamatakis". The Historical Review/La Revue Historique. 17: 181–204. doi:10.12681/hr.27071.
  • Antonaccio, Carla (1992). "Terraces, Tombs, and the Early Argive Heraion". Hesperia. 61 (1): 85–105. JSTOR 148184.
  • Archaeological Museum of Thebes (2016). "The scientific work". Archived from the original on 04 December 2022. Retrieved 04 December 2022. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= and |archive-date= (help)
  • Athens Archaeological Society (2019). "Stamatakis Panagiotis". Archived from the original on 27 January 2019.
  • Dickinson, O.T.P.K. (1976). "Schliemann and the Shaft Graves". Greece and Rome. 23 (2): 159–168.
  • Constantinos, Eleni; Paschalidis (2019). "The unacknowledged Panayotis Stamatakis and his invaluable contribution to the understanding of Grave Circle A at Mycenae". Archaeological Reports (65): 111–126.
  • Konstantinidi-Syvridi, Eleni. "Panagiotis Stamatakis: "Valuing the ancient monuments of Greece as sacred wealth…"". In Lagogianni-Georgakarakos, Maria; Koutsogiannis, Thodoris (eds.). These Are What We Fought For: Antiquities and the Greek War of Independence. Athens. pp. 276–289.
  • Marchand, Fabienne (2011). "A New Profession in a Funerary Inscription from Tanagra". Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 178: 207–209.
  • Petrakos, Vassilis (2011). Η εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία. Οι Αρχαιολόγοι και οι Ανασκαφές 1837-2011 (Κατάλογος Εκθέσεως). Athens.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Petrakos, Vassilis (2007). "The Stages of Greek Archaeology". In Vanavalis, Panos (ed.). Great Moments in Greek Archaeology. Athens: Kapon Press. pp. 16–35.
  • Petrakos, Vassilis (2005). "Η λεηλασία της Τανάγρας και ο Παναγιώτης Σταματάκης". Mentor. 76: 141–150.
  • Prag, A.J.N.W.; Papazoglou-Manioudaki, Lena; Neave, R.A.H.; Smith, Denise; Musgrave, J.H.; Nafplioti, A. (2009). "Mycenae Revisited, Part 1: The human remains from Grave Circle A: Stamatakis, Schliemann and two new faces from Shaft Grave VI". The Annual of the British School at Athens. 104: 233–277.
  • Raftopoulou, Stella (1998). "New Finds from Sparta". British School at Athens Studies. 4: 125–140. JSTOR 40960265.
  • Traill, David (1993). "Schliemann's Mycenae excavations through the eyes of Stamatakis". Excavating Schliemann: Collected Papers on Schliemann. Atlanta. pp. 205–214.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Wace, Alan J.B.; Thompson, Maurice Scott (1912). Prehistoric Thessaly : being some account of recent excavations and explorations in north-eastern Greece from Lake Kopais to the borders of Macedonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Vasilikou, Dora (2011). Το χρονικό της ανασκαφής των Μυκηνών, 1870-1878. Athens.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Vasilikou, Dora (2006). Οι ανασκαφές της Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας στις Κυκλάδες 1872-1910. Athens.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Zachariou, Maria (2013). Looking at the Past of Greece through the Eyes of Greeks (M.A.).
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