Dyfri Williams (born 8 February 1952) is a British classical archaeologist. Williams received his doctorate in 1978 from Oxford University, writing on the work of the Antiphon Painter. He joined the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum in 1979. From 1993 to 2007, he was the museum's Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities. [1] Since December 2007 he has been the research Keeper. [2]
Williams' main research areas are the collections of Attic vase painting, and ancient Greek metalwork as well as questions of history. He has been a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. [2]
The Portland Vase is a Roman cameo glass vase, which is dated to between AD 1 and AD 25, though low BC dates have some scholarly support. It is the best known piece of Roman cameo glass and has served as an inspiration to many glass and porcelain makers from about the beginning of the 18th century onwards. It is first recorded in Rome in 1600–1601, and since 1810 has been in the British Museum in London. It was bought by the museum in 1945 and is normally on display in Room 70.
Johann Michael Adolf Furtwängler was a German archaeologist, teacher, art historian and museum director. He was the father of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and grandfather of the German archaeologist Andreas Furtwängler.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Sir John Boardman, is a classical archaeologist and art historian. He has been described as "Britain's most distinguished historian of ancient Greek art."
The Brygos Painter was an ancient Greek Attic red-figure vase painter of the Late Archaic period. Together with Onesimos, Douris and Makron, he is among the most important cup painters of his time. He was active in the first third of the 5th century BCE, especially in the 480s and 470s BCE. He was a prolific artist to whom over two hundred vases have been attributed, but he is perhaps best known for the Brygos Cup, a red-figure kylix in the Louvre which depicts the "iliupersis" or sack of Troy.
In the modern study of the culture of ancient Greece and Magna Graecia, a pinax (πίναξ), meaning "board", is a votive tablet of painted wood, or terracotta, marble or bronze relief that served as a votive object deposited in a sanctuary or as a memorial affixed within a burial chamber. Such pinakes feature in the classical collections of most comprehensive museums.
Reynold Alleyne Higgins was a Classical Archaeologist. He worked at the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum from 1947 to 1977, finishing his career as Acting Keeper. He was also Chairman of the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens from 1975 to 1979. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1972.
Ian Dennis Jenkins was a Senior Curator at the British Museum who was an expert on ancient Greece and specialised in ancient Greek sculpture. Jenkins published a number of books and over a hundred articles. He led the British Museum's excavations at Cnidus and was involved in the debate over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles.
Winifred Lamb was a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator who specialised in Greek, Roman, and Anatolian cultures and artefacts. The bulk of her career was spent as the honorary keeper (curator) of Greek antiquities at the University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum from 1920 to 1958, and the Fitzwilliam Museum states that she was a "generous benefactor ... raising the profile of the collections through groundbreaking research, acquisitions and publications."
The Blacas Cameo is an unusually large Ancient Roman cameo, 12.8 cm (5.0 in) high, carved from a piece of sardonyx with four alternating layers of white and brown. It shows the profile head of the Roman emperor Augustus and probably dates from shortly after his death in AD 14, perhaps from AD 20–50. It has been in the British Museum since 1867, when the museum acquired the famous collection of antiquities that Louis, Duke of Blacas had inherited from his father, also including the Esquiline Treasure. Normally it is on display in Room 70.
John Richard "Jaś" Elsner, is a British art historian and classicist, who in 2013 was Humfry Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Archaeology and Art at the University of Oxford, based at Corpus Christi College, and Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. He is mainly known for his work on Roman art, including Late Antiquity and Byzantine art, as well as the historiography of art history, and is a prolific writer on these and other topics. Elsner has been described as "one of the most well-known figures in the field of ancient art history, respected for his notable erudition, extensive range of interests and expertise, his continuing productivity, and above all, for the originality of his mind", and by Shadi Bartsch, a colleague at Chicago, as "the predominant contemporary scholar of the relationship between classical art and ancient subjectivity".
The Satala Aphrodite is a larger-than-life–sized head of an ancient Hellenistic statue discovered in Satala. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1873, a year after its discovery, and is on display in the museum's Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Whether it represents the Greek goddess Aphrodite or her Armenian equivalent Anahit is the subject of debate. It is usually dated around the 2nd–1st centuries BC. The head is widely depicted in Armenian culture as an iconic symbol of the country's pre-Christian history.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
Ann Wheeler Harnwell Ashmead is an American archaeologist who has co-authored comprehensive catalogues with the archaeologist Etruscologist Kyle Meredith Phillips, Jr. about the Greek Vase Painting collections of Bryn Mawr College (1971) and the Rhode Island School of Design (1976). She has also written the main published catalogue for the Antiquities Collection of Haverford College (1999). and many articles on Greek Vases.
Nigel Reuben Rook Williams was an English conservator and expert on the restoration of ceramics and glass. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. There his work included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase.
Jack Ogden, FSA, FGA, is a British jewellery historian with a particular interest in the development of Materials and technology. He is considered one of the foremost experts in his field. He is the current President of The Society of Jewellery Historians, having held the position since February 2018, and was appointed Visiting Professor of Ancient Jewellery, Material and Technology, at the Birmingham School of Jewellery Birmingham City University in 2019
Catherine Johns is a British archaeologist and museum curator. She is a specialist in Roman jewellery, Romano-British provincial art, and erotic art.
Denys Eyre Lankester Haynes was an English classical scholar, archaeologist, and museum curator, who specialised in the full range of classical archaeology. He was Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum between 1956 and 1976. He was additionally Geddes–Harrower Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen from 1972 to 1973, and, in retirement, visitor to the Ashmolean Museum from 1979 to 1987. He had served in military intelligence during the Second World War.
Elizabeth Caroline Hamilton Gray was a Scottish historian and travel author, born in Alva, Clackmannanshire, as the eldest daughter of James Raymond Johnstone and granddaughter of the colonial businessman John Johnstone. After marrying John Hamilton Gray, a priest and genealogist, in June 1829, Gray moved to Bolsover Castle in England, where she lived until shortly before her death.