Timothy W. Potter

Last updated

Tim Potter
Born
Timothy William Potter

(1944-07-06)6 July 1944
Died11 January 2000(2000-01-11) (aged 55)
OccupationArchaeologist

Timothy William Potter (6 July 1944 – 11 January 2000) was a prominent archaeologist of ancient Italy, as well as of Roman Britain, best known for his focus on landscape archaeology.

Contents

Potter was educated at March Grammar School in March, Cambridgeshire, where his father Cedric Potter was headmaster. He followed his brother Christopher to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read anthropology and archaeology, graduating with a 2:1 in 1966 and obtained his Ph.D. in 1974; his Ph.D. thesis was entitled Archaeological Topography of the Central and Southern Ager Faliscus. [1] In the 1980s Potter excavated at Stonea, a Roman settlement in the fens of Cambridgeshire. [2]

Potter was a student of John Bryan Ward-Perkins and a member of the South Etruria Survey conducted by the British School at Rome. As part of the survey Potter worked on the Ager Faliscus leading to two influential books, A Faliscan Town in South Etruria: Excavations at Narce 1966-71 (1976) and The changing landscape of South Etruria (1979). The survey also led to his important excavations at Monte Gelato (1986-1990) [3] and Narce (1966-1971). [4] Potter also authored a popular course textbook entitled Roman Italy (1987) as part of the Exploring Roman World series published by British Museum Publishing. [5] Together with Catherine Johns, he also wrote the Roman Britain title in the series.

Potter taught at the University of Lancaster (1973-1978) where he instituted a new archaeology program. In 1978 he moved to the British Museum and their department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, serving as assistant keeper from 1978 to 1995 and keeper from 1995 until his death.

Bibliography

Necrology

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falerii</span>

Falerii was a city in southern Etruria, 50 km northeast of Rome, 34 km from Veii and about 1.5 km west of the ancient Via Flaminia. It was the main city of the Falisci, a people whose language was Faliscan and was part of the Latino-Faliscan language group. The Ager Faliscus, which included the towns of Capena, Nepet, and Sutrium, was close to the Monti Cimini.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falisci</span>

Falisci is the ancient Roman exonym for an Italic tribe who lived in what is now northern Lazio, on the Etruscan side of the Tiber River. They spoke an Italic language, Faliscan, closely akin to Latin. Originally a sovereign state, politically and socially they supported the Etruscans, joining the Etruscan League. This conviction and affiliation led to their ultimate near destruction and total subjugation by Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cosa</span>

Cosa was a Latin colony founded in southwestern Tuscany in 273 BC, on land confiscated from the Etruscans, to solidify the control of the Romans and offer the Republic a protected port. The Etruscan site may have been where modern Orbetello stands; a fortification wall in polygonal masonry at Orbetello's lagoon may be in phase with the walls of Cosa. The position of Cosa is distinct, rising some 113 metres above sea level and is sited 140 km northwest of Rome on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, on a hill near the small town of Ansedonia. The town experienced a hard life and was never truly a prosperous Roman city, although it has assumed a position of prominence in Roman archaeology owing to the circumstances of its excavation. After the foundation, wars of the 3rd century BC affected the town. New colonists arrived in 197 BC. Cosa seems to have prospered until it was sacked in the 60s BC, perhaps by pirates - although an earthquake and unrest related to the Catilinarian Conspiracy have also been cited as reasons. This led to a re-foundation under Augustus and then life continued until the 3rd century. One of the last textual references to Cosa comes from the work of Rutilius Claudius Namatianus in his De reditu suo. In the passage 1.285-90, Rutilius remarks that by AD 417 the site of Cosa was deserted and could be seen to be in ruins. He further suggests that a plague of mice had driven the people of Cosa away.

The year 2000 in archaeology included many events, some of which are listed below.

The year 1944 in archaeology involved some significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castor, Cambridgeshire</span> Human settlement in England

Castor is a village and civil parish in the City of Peterborough unitary authority, about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the city centre. The parish is part of the former Soke of Peterborough, which was considered part of Northamptonshire until 1888 and then Huntingdon and Peterborough from 1965 to 1974, when it became part of Cambridgeshire.

Frank Edward Brown was a preeminent Mediterranean archaeologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucus Feroniae</span> Archaeological site in Capena, Italy

Lucus Feroniae was an ancient sanctuary or, literally sacred grove ("lucus"), dedicated to the Sabine goddess Feronia, protector of freedmen, ex-slaves. It was located near to the ancient town of Feronia in Etruria on the ancient Via Tiberina, in what is now the territory of the modern commune of Capena, Lazio.

John Bryan Ward-Perkins, was a British Classical architectural historian and archaeologist, and director of the British School at Rome.

Oxford Archaeology is one of the largest and longest-established independent archaeology and heritage practices in Europe, operating from three permanent offices in Oxford, Lancaster and Cambridge, and working across the UK. OA is a Registered Organisation with the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), and carries out commercial archaeological fieldwork in advance of development, as well as a range of other heritage related services. Oxford Archaeology primarily operates in the UK, but has also carried out contracts around the world, including Sudan, Qatar, Central Asia, China and the Caribbean. Numbers of employees vary owing to the project-based nature of the work, but in 2014 OA employed over 220 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stonea Camp</span>

Stonea Camp is an Iron Age multivallate hill fort located at Stonea near March in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Situated on a gravel bank just 2 metres above sea-level, it is the lowest hill fort in Britain. Around 500 BC, when fortification is thought to have begun at this site, this "hill" would have provided a significant area of habitable land amidst the flooded marshes of the fens. The site exhibits at least two phases of development over several hundred years of settlement, with a D-shaped set of earth banks surrounded by a larger, more formal set of banks and ditches.

The British School at Rome’s Tiber Valley Project (1998-2002) studied the changing landscapes of the middle Tiber Valley as the hinterland of Rome through two millennia. It drew on the vast amount of archaeological work carried out in this area to examine the impact of the growth, success and transformation of the city on the history of settlement, economy and society in the river valley from ca. 1000 BC to AD 1000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Meredith Phillips Jr.</span>

Kyle Meredith Phillips Jr. was a leading American Etruscologist.

The Silva Ciminia, the Ciminian Forest, was the unbroken primeval forest that separated Ancient Rome from Etruria. According to the Roman historian Livy it was, in the 4th century BCE, a feared, pathless wilderness in which few dared tread.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Narce</span>

Narce was a Faliscan settlement in Italy located 5 kilometers south of Falerii. Its residents spoke an Italic language related to Latin. It was inhabited from the 2nd millennium to the 3rd century B.C. The ancient name of the settlement is uncertain, but it may have been called Fescennium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stonea</span> Hamlet in Cambridgeshire, England, with iron age hill fort

Stonea is a hamlet in Cambridgeshire, England, south east of March and part of the parish of Wimblington. Stonea today consists of a scattered collection of farmsteads and houses, the majority sited along Sixteen Foot Bank, a man-made river which forms part of the Middle Level Navigations. The largest settlement is on the bank near the Golden Lion pub. A former Primitive Methodist chapel is now a private residence.

Mary Aylwin Cotton OBE, FSA, Hon FBA, known as Molly Cotton, was a British archaeologist and former doctor, noted for her work in Iron Age Britain - particularly hill forts - and Roman Italy. She trained archaeology students at the British School at Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake of the Idols</span> Body of water

Lake of the Idols is a lake located in Arezzo Province, Tuscany, Italy. It is located 1,380 metres (4,530 ft) above sea level atop Monte Falterona, about 600 metres from the source of the river Arno. Situated near an ancient road linking Etruria with the Adriatic port cities of Romagna, it is known for one of the largest archaeological finds of the Etruscan civilization; over 600 bronze statuettes of Etruscan and Roman origin, along with thousands of other figurines from Cisalpine Gaul and Umbria, were discovered within the lake.

References

  1. Potter, T., & University of Cambridge. (1974). The Archaeological Topography of the Central and Southern Ager Foliscus.
  2. Potter, T. W., Catherine Johns, David Hall, Mark Hassall, and David Shotter. “The Roman Occupation of the Central Fenland.” Britannia 12 (1981): 79–133. https://doi.org/10.2307/526244.
  3. Potter, T., King, A. C, & British School at Rome. (1997). Excavations at the Mola di Monte Gelato : A Roman and medieval settlement in South Etruria. (Archaeological monographs of the British School at Rome ; no 11). British School at Rome.
  4. Potter, T. (1976). A Faliscan town in south Etruria : Excavations at Narce, 1966-71 / by T.W. Potter. (Supplementary publications (British School at Rome)). London ([1 Lowther Gardens, Exhibition Rd, SW7 2AA]): The British School at Rome.
  5. Potter, T. (1987). Roman Italy / T.W. Potter. (Exploring the Roman world). London: British Museum Publications.
  6. Dyson, Stephen L. “Timothy William Potter, 1944-2000.” American Journal of Archaeology 104, no. 3 (2000): 589–90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/507230.