George Ewart Bean (1903 – 7 December 1977) was an English archaeologist and writer who specialized in classical Turkey. His father

William Jackson Bean William Jackson Bean (26 May 1863 in Yorkshire – 19 April 1947 in Kew, Surrey) was a British botanist and plantsman, who was curator of Kew Gardens from 1922 to 1929. He was responsible for some of the present collections of trees and woody pla ...

was a botanist, author, and curator of

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the ...

. Bean was educated at

St Paul's School, London (''By Faith and By Learning'') , established = , closed = , type = Independent school Public school , religion = Church of England , president = , h ...

from 1916 to 1921. He attended Pembroke College, Cambridge and won the Schoolbred Scholarship and the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarship for Classics.

Career

Bean returned to St Paul's School to teach ancient Greek in 1926. He took his MA from Cambridge in 1930. In the 1930s, he organized summer school trips to the Aegean coast of Turkey. In 1943, in the middle of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he was recruited by the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

to teach English in Izmir. Several years later, he helped to set up the archaeology department at the

University of Istanbul , image = Istanbul_University_logo.svg , image_size = 200px , latin_name = Universitas Istanbulensis , motto = tr, Tarihten Geleceğe Bilim Köprüsü , mottoeng = Science Bridge from Past to the Future , established = 1453 1846 1933 ...

. He stayed on in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, teaching classics at the university for 24 years. Between 1943 and 1971, Bean travelled extensively in rural Turkey in order to discover and record its classical remains. Over the years, he became a well-known and respected figure in the countryside. The publisher

Ernest Benn Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, 2nd Baronet, (25 June 1875 – 17 January 1954) was a British publisher, writer and political publicist. His father, John Benn, was a politician, who had been made a baronet in 1914. He was an uncle of the Labou ...

commissioned him to write a series of archaeological guidebooks on the region. The result was a series of four books describing the classical archaeology of Turkey. These are: * ''Aegean Turkey'' * ''Turkey beyond the Maeander'' * ''Turkey's Southern Shore'' * ''Lycian Turkey'' He was a friend of the

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

-educated classicist

Terence Mitford Terence Bruce Mitford FBA FSA (sometimes known as Terence Bruce-Mitford) (11 May 1905 – 8 November 1978) was a Scottish archaeologist and classicist. He spent his whole career at the University of St Andrews, and had a special interest in th ...

, and together they undertook numerous journeys into the Turkish interior. They also wrote two books together, titled ''Journeys in Rough Cilicia''. Bean was a physically imposing man, six foot six in height. He was an avid player of badminton and tennis, and once reached the third round at Wimbledon. His first marriage in 1946 to Nancy Ethel Rees, a fellow Cambridge graduate, lasted six years. He met his second wife Cynthia Jane Carter in Istanbul, where the latter was a schoolteacher. George Bean died in 1977, just as the last volume in his guidebook series was going to press. He was survived by his wife, Jane and daughter, Oenone.

Legacy

A photographic collection belonging to Bean is held at the

Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge The Museum of Classical Archaeology is a museum in Cambridge, run by the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge, England. Since 1983, it has been located in a purpose-built gallery on the first floor of the Faculty of Classics on th ...

.See , , and

Appendices

Notes and references

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bean, George Ewart English archaeologists 1903 births 1977 deaths English travel writers English male tennis players British male tennis players Travelers in Asia Minor