Michael Hamilton Jameson (

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

15 October 1924 – 18 August 2004) was a classicist. At the time of his death he was Crossett Professor Emeritus of Humanistic Studies at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. His father, Raymond D. Jameson, professor of Western literature at the University of Peking, and mother, Rose Perel Jameson, were visiting

at the time of his birth. He spent his childhood in Beijing and with his mother in London, received his A.B. in Greek at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1942, aged seventeen, served in the U.S. Navy as a Japanese translator, 1943–46, then married Virginia Broyles. He received his Ph.D. at Chicago in 1949, with a dissertation on "The Offering at Meals: Its Place in Greek Sacrifice". A

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

in 1949 supported him at the

American School of Classical Studies , 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 ...

at Athens, where he hiked the

Peloponnesos The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge whic ...

with his new wife and gained an intimate knowledge of inscriptions. After a brief stint at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

, he accepted a

Ford Fellowship Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

at the Institute for Social Anthropology at

Oxford University 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 ...

. On his return to the United States, be began his long association with the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

(1954–76). Though a spirit of perfectionism inhibited his production of an overarching book, in some sixty articles he explored the setting of Greek religion in its specific locality and time, thus focusing on unravelling the details of

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

and ritual sacrifice; he did a great deal of work on

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

and its relations with literature and history, and he explored Greek sites, especially at the partly drowned port city of Halieis ( Porto Cheli), which he began excavating in 1962, and in the Argolid, where he galvanized a broad ecological study, 1979–83, that was the first examination of the paleoecology of ancient Greece, resulting in the publication of M. H. Jameson, Tjeerd Van Andel and C. N. Runnels, ''A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day'' (Stanford University Press) 1994. His single most dramatic discovery was of a copy of the

Decree of Themistocles The Decree of Themistocles or Troezen Inscription is an ancient Greek inscription, found at Troezen, discussing Greek strategy in the Greco-Persian Wars, purported to have been issued by the Athenian assembly under the guidance of Themistocles. Si ...

, mobilizing early preparations for the evacuation of Attica before the

Battle of Salamis The Battle of Salamis ( ) was a naval battle fought between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles and the Persian Empire under King Xerxes in 480 BC. It resulted in a decisive victory for the outnumbered Greeks. The battle was ...

(480 BCE), which he recognized in a ''kapheneion'' (a Greek café) in Troezen and copied in a squeeze. The discovery, which adjusted the historian's view drawn from

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

, elicited extensive literature, including four articles by Jameson, setting the text in its historical context and debating its essential authenticity. He received numerous awards and visiting fellowships, including a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1966–67, and inspired a generation of scholars through his teaching. He was an elected member of both the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(1968) and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1973). He died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, at the age of 79, in 2004.

Selected publications

Jameson contributed popular articles to encyclopedias: "Greek Mythology" in N. Kramer, ''The Mythologies of the Ancient World'' 1961, and "Mythology, Classical" in ''Collier's Encyclopedia'' 17 (1995:115-17). His articles are widely scattered. *"The Hero Echetlaeus", ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'' 82, (1951:49-61) *Translation of Sophocles’ ''The Women of Trachis'' (1957) *"Mycenaean religion", ''Archaeology'' 13 (1960) *"A Decree of Themistokles from Troizen", ''Hesperia'' 19 (1960:198–223) *"Notes on the sacrificial calendar from Erchia", ' 89 (1965:154-72) *"The mysteries of Eleusis", ''Bulletin of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis'' 19 (September 1969) *"The Excavation of a Drowned Greek Temple", ''Scientific American'' (October 1972:74–91). *"Sacrifice and animal husbandry in Classical Greece," C.R. Whittaker, ed.''Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity'', Cambridge Philological Society, suppl. 14 (1988:87–119) *"Perseus, the Hero of Mykenai", in ''Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid'', edited by R. Hägg and G.C. Nordquist, 1990 *"Sacrifice before Battle", in ''Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience'', V.D. Hanson, ed. (1991:197–227) *"The asexuality of Dionysus", in ''Masks of Dionysus'' Thomas H. Carpenter and Christopher A. Faraone, eds.. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press) (1993). *"The Ritual of the Athena Nike Parapet", in ''Ritual, Finance, Politics. Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis.'' Robin Osborne and Simon Hornblower, eds. (Oxford:Clarendon Press) (1994:307-324)

Notes

External links

''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', Martin Ostwald, Biographical memoirMemorial Service for Michael H. Jameson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jameson, Michael H. 1924 births 2004 deaths University of Chicago alumni Stanford University faculty University of Missouri faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty American expatriates in the United Kingdom American expatriates in China United States Navy personnel of World War II Members of the American Philosophical Society