Dorothy Burr Thompson (August 19, 1900 – May 10, 2001) was an American

classical archaeologist Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

and

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

and a leading authority on

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

figurines.

Biography

Thompson was the elder of two daughters of a prominent

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

family. Her father was attorney Charles Henry Burr Jr. and her mother was novelist and biographer

Anna Robeson Brown Anna Robeson Brown Burr (May 26, 1873 – September 10, 1941) was an American writer of novels, poetry, stories, essays, and biographies. Her ''The Autobiography: A Critical and Comparative Study'' (1909), was the first book on the subject. Early ...

. Her grandfather was noted orator and lawyer Henry Armitt Brown. Early in life Thompson studied the Classics, attending Miss Hill's School in Center City, Pa., and The Latin School in

. She began her study of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

at age 9 and ancient

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

at 12. At age 13, she took a

Grand Tour of Europe The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a cice ...

, visiting museums and monuments of Europe. In 1919 she began her studies at

where she took courses with

Rhys Carpenter Rhys Carpenter (August 5, 1889 – January 2, 1980) was an American classical art historian and professor at Bryn Mawr College. Carpenter was unconventional as a scholar. He analyzed Greek art from the standpoint of artistic production and b ...

and

Mary Hamilton Swindler Mary Hamilton Swindler (January 2, 1884 – January 16, 1967) was an American archaeologist, classical art scholar, author, and professor of classical archaeology, most notably at Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the ...

. She graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' in 1923, the first graduate with a major in Greek and archaeology, and was awarded the college's European Fellowship. She used the fellowship to study at the

American School of Classical Studies at Athens , native_name_lang = Greek , image = American School of Classical Studies at Athens.jpg , image_size = , image_alt = , caption = The ASCSA main building as seen from Mount Lykavittos , latin_name = , other_name = , former_name = , mo ...

, works on excavations with

Carl Blegen Carl William Blegen (January 27, 1887 – August 24, 1971) was an American archaeologist who worked at the site of Pylos in Greece and Troy in modern-day Turkey. He directed the University of Cincinnati excavations of the mound of Hisarlik ...

Phlius Phlius (; grc-gre, Φλιοῦς) or Phleius () was an independent polis (city-state) in the northeastern part of Peloponnesus. Phlius' territory, called Phliasia (), was bounded on the north by Sicyonia, on the west by Arcadia, on the east by Cl ...

. In 1925 Thompson discovered a tholos tomb that proved to be the burial place of the king and queen of

Midea Midea may refer to: * Midea Group (美的集团), a Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer * Midea, Greece, a Greek town * Midea (Argolid), a citadel in the town of the same name * Midea or Mideia, name of four figures in Greek mythology * '' ...

. She completed her Ph.D. at

in 1931; it entailed a study of the 117 Hellenistic terracotta figures from Myrina in the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

In 1932 Thompson was appointed the first female Fellow of the

Athenian Agora The ancient Agora of Athens (also called the Classical Agora) is the best-known example of an ancient Greek agora, located to the northwest of the Acropolis and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill ...

excavations.Dorothy Burr Thompson papers
ASCSA.edu; retrieved October 2, 2016. The dig's assistant director of field work was the Canadian archaeologist

Homer Thompson Homer Armstrong Thompson (September 7, 1906 – May 7, 2000) was a Canadian classical archaeologist of the twentieth century, specializing in ancient Greece. While studying for his doctorate at the University of Michigan, Benjamin Dean Mer ...

; the two married in 1934. Homer Thompson accepted positions as curator of the classical collection at the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

of Archaeology and assistant professor in fine arts at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

. Burr Thompson had three daughters between 1935 and 1938, but found time to remain involved during the same period in the

excavations, where she discovered the garden of the Temple of

Hephaistos Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter Burk ...

in 1936. In 1946 her husband accepted a chair at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

, and Burr Thompson served as acting director of the Royal Ontario Museum until she moved to Princeton, New Jersey the following year. At Princeton she continued to publish and carry out her research. She published the book ''An Ancient Shopping Center: The Athenian Agora'' in 1971. In 1987 she was awarded the

Gold Medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

for distinguished achievement by the

Archaeological Institute of America The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America's oldest society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and AIA has established re ...

. She died in

Hightstown, New Jersey Hightstown is a borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 5,494,West Laurel Hill Cemetery West Laurel Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1869, is 200 acres in size and contains the burials of many notable people. It is affiliated with Laurel Hill Cemetery in neighboring Ph ...

Publications

* Dissertation: ''Terra-cottas from Myrina in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston''. Bryn Mawr College, 1931; ssued as book of same titleVienna: A. Holzhausens Nachfolger, 1934. * and Davidson, Gladys R., and Talcott, Lucy. ''Small Objects from the Pnyx''. 2 vols. Baltimore: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1943–56. * ''An Ancient Shopping Center: the Athenian Agora''. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1971. * and Frantz, Allison. ''Miniature Sculpture from the Athenian Agora''. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1959. * ''Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience: Aspects of the Ruler-Cult''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. * and

and Susan Rotroff. ''Hellenistic Pottery and Terracottas''. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1987. * "Three Centuries of Hellenistic Terracottas." ''Hesperia'' 31 (1962): 244–262. * ''Troy: the Terra-Cotta Figurines of the Hellenistic Period'' (1963).

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Dorothy Burr 1900 births 2001 deaths American archaeologists American centenarians Bryn Mawr College alumni American School of Classical Studies at Athens Women art historians American art historians American women archaeologists 20th-century American women writers American women historians Women centenarians Oberlin College faculty

Biography

Publications

See also

References

Further reading

External links