Duncan Mackenzie (17 May 1861 – 1934) was a
Scottish archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, whose work focused on one of the more spectacular 20th century
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
finds, Crete's palace of
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
, the proven centre of
Minoan civilisation
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
.
Early biography
![Aultgowrie bridge - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Aultgowrie_bridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_84829.jpg)
Duncan MacKenzie was born on 17 May 1861 in the small, Gaelic-speaking village of Aultgowrie, in the highlands of eastern
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, 15 miles from the coastal town of Inverness, in
Ross and Cromarty
Ross and Cromarty ( gd, Ros agus Cromba), sometimes referred to as Ross-shire and Cromartyshire, is a variously defined area in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There is a registration county and a lieutenancy area in current use, the latt ...
.
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
had been on the throne of the United Kingdom since 1837. As is indicated by his last name, Duncan's father, Alexander, was an offshoot of the
Mackenzie clan, whose territory stretched in a band westward across Scotland. In the clan system, the chiefs, guardians of the clan, were generally well-to-do, holding clan lands in trust, but later appropriating them as private property. They resided in castles on estates. The rest of the clan members were not so, but tended to be poor families dependent in some way on the chiefs. Alexander held the position of gamekeeper of the Fairburn Estate, on which Aultgowrie was located. It was at the confluence of highland streams. The owners were the MacKenzies of Seaforth, a branch of the clan. They had a mill, and raised sheep.
Duncan was the fourth of nine children of Alexander and his wife, Margaret Kennedy MacKenzie. He was named after his grandfather, Duncan. His mother was the eldest daughter of Murdoch Kennedy, a schoolteacher. The family spoke Gaelic at home. When they went to school they were required to learn English. Duncan was thus raised in a large-family, bilingual environment.
He studied
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
at the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
; and received his
PhD from
Vienna
en, Viennese
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, registration_plate = W
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, timezone = CET
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, timezone_DST ...
in classical archaeology.
Professional career
Appointed field supervisor of the excavation of Phylakopi by the British School at Athens, he worked closely with a team of professional archaeologists including
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...
and
David George Hogarth
David George Hogarth (23 May 1862 – 6 November 1927), also known as D. G. Hogarth, was a British archaeologist and scholar associated with T. E. Lawrence and Arthur Evans. He was Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford from 1909 to 1927.
Hog ...
. They were investigating the provenance of
Mycenaean pottery
Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by ...
as defined by Heinrich Schliemann. After a few years they realised that Phylakopi was not going to yield that information. The evidence pointed toward Crete. Evans and Hogarth left Phylakopi, while MacKenzie stayed on to wind the excavation down.
Within a few years the secession of Crete from the Ottoman Empire opened opportunities to excavate there. Hogarth was the first to discover it. He sent for Evans immediately, as the Phylakopi crew had been a very close-knit team. Purchasing the land at Knossos, Evans began excavation, sending for the third member of the team, MacKenzie, who took up his old position as supervisor of excavation. In her book on the Evans family (of which she was the latest member, being Arthur's half-sister), ''Time and Chance'', Joan Evans gives this verbal portrait of MacKenzie in his prime:
:Mackenzie was a Scot with an inaudible Highland voice, a brush of red hair, an uncertain temper, a great command of languages, and great experience in keeping the records of an excavation. Arthur Evans recognised his gifts, and endured his suspicious temper and his valetudinarian ways with exemplary patience.
Hogarth left for other excavations and then other careers, but Evans and MacKenzie collaborated so closely on the excavation of Knossos and theorisation about it that the ideas of the two men are not distinguishable from each other. MacKenzie kept the day book, or log of daily discoveries and served as a middle man between Evans and the inhabitants of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
. MacKenzie also wrote contributions of his own. The British connotation of "assistant" does not convey the true relationship. A PhD and professional archaeologist in his own right, MacKenzie was every bit the peer of Evans, His position as second-in-command was only a social convention. The two would work together for the next thirty years, long after the excavation was complete (1905). MacKenzie remained as curator of the site, taking up residence in the new Villa Ariadne constructed as headquarters in 1906 on the hill above the site. Prior to then the archaeologists resided and worked in a Turkish house below the site, which leaked apparently irreparably and provided difficult access to the site.
Tales of the end
According to Evans, Mackenzie came to suffer from severe alcoholism and could not only no longer function as curator, but was fast declining into a demented state. Evans placed him in an institution, where he died not long after. Joan Evans reports that Mackenzie had become very difficult to work with during the latter years of his curatorship because of "the gradual onset of his illness."
It has also been said that Evans found Mackenzie one night passed out on a table and fired him the next day. Friends of Mackenzie disputed this, saying he did not drink. Whether the problem was alcoholism, denied for some reason by his family, or one of the brain disorders often inflicting the elderly, which Duncan then was, or some combination, Joan adds that he died in 1935 in a state of "mental aberration."
Whatever they were, none of the final events can have been any surprise at all to Arthur, least of all any implication that Duncan was leading some sort of unknown alcoholic life until discovered suddenly one day lying in a stupor on a table. Long after the deaths of both men, after the decipherment of Linear B, attempts were made to insert an imaginary opposition and conflict between the two over the date of the Linear B tablets, which, in the slander, caused Arthur to discredit Duncan with malice aforethought and hustle him off the scene. During the lives of the two men is no indication at all in their writings of any such disagreement; moreover, Evans was of a highly charitable character, nor has the veracity of either man ever been questioned during his lifetime, as was Heinrich Schliemann's (from which he was vindicated).
Post-mortem dispute
After Mackenzie's death in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, some of Evans' system of Minoan
dating
Dating is a stage of romantic relationships in which two individuals engage in an activity together, most often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the categor ...
came into question. Mackenzie's meticulous work was the key witness in defence of Evans' work. Though there was conflict between Evans and Mackenzie, Evans respected Mackenzie for his contributions to the excavation and paid tribute to his right-hand man in the last volume of ''The Palace of Minos''.
See also
*
Linear B
Linear B was a syllabic script used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. It is descended from ...
*
Mycenaean pottery
Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by ...
Notes
References
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackenzie, Duncan
Scottish archaeologists
People from Ross and Cromarty
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
1861 births
1934 deaths