Lise Hannestad née Budolfsen (born 1943) is a Danish

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

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 ...

and writer. She joined the staff of

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

in 1971, heading the classical archaeology department from 1989 until her retirement in 2004. She has published many articles and books in English on Greece and Rome in antiquity. Her most recent work is ''Nicator - Seleucus I and His Empire'' (2020).

Biography

Born on 15 October 1943 in

Holstebro Holstebro is the main town in Holstebro Municipality, Denmark. The town, bisected by ''Storåen'' ("The Large Creek") and has a population of 36,489 (1 January 2022).Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

, when she was 13 she moved with her family to

Hjørring Hjørring () is a town on the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. It is the main town and the administrative seat of Hjørring Municipality in the North Jutland Region. The population is 25,644 (accor ...

where she matriculated at the high school in 1962. She went on to study

classical archaeology 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 ...

at the universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen, earning a master's degree from Aarhus University in 1970, followed by a PhD in 1983. During her studies, she married fellow student Niels Hannestad, who later became a professor and assisted her in her archaeological investigations. Their son Steen is an astrophysicist. Hannestad's main research interest has focused on history rather than the history of art, with special attention to the influence of ancient Greek culture or other cultures. In the mid-1970s, she published two short books on Etruscan culture, ''The Paris Painter: An Etruscan Vase-painter'' (1974) and ''The Followers of the Paris Painter'' (1976). Her doctoral thesis, ''Ikaros: The Hellenistic Pottery'' (1985), examined the Greeks' encounters in the Middle East following the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

. More popular works in Danish include ''Mad og drikke i det antikke Rom'' (Food and Drink in Ancient Rome, 1979) and ''Etruskerne og deres kunst'' (The Etruscans and Their Art, 1982). The archaeological sites she has investigated in the Middle East and North Africa include

Bodrum Bodrum () is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient t ...

Failaka Failaka Island ( ar, فيلكا '' / ''; Kuwaiti Arabic: فيلچا ) is a Kuwaiti Island in the Persian Gulf. The island is 20 km off the coast of Kuwait City in the Persian Gulf. The name "Failaka" is thought to be derived from the ancient ...

, Segermes,

Cephalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia ( el, Κεφαλονιά), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallenia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It i ...

and western Cyprus. In the mid-1990s, she headed Danish interests in Russian-Danish collaboration on researching Greek settlements in the Crimea. More recently, she has coordinated Danish archaeological research into the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

between the Middle East and China. Since her retirement from Aarhus University in 2004, she has continued to be active, recently publishing a history of Alexander's general and later king, Seleucus, titled ''Nicator - Seleucus I and His Empire'' (2020).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hannestad, Lise 1943 births Living people People from Holstebro Aarhus University alumni Academic staff of Aarhus University Women classical scholars Danish classical scholars Danish women writers 20th-century Danish non-fiction writers 21st-century Danish writers