Venetia Kotta (; 1897 or 1901 – 1945) was an archaeologist, museum curator, and Byzantine historian from Sampsunta in the former

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

Biography and historical background

Venetia Kotta was born in 1897 or 1901 in Sampsunta, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Her parents belonged to the

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

region's Greek-speaking minority. Kotta completed her high school education in Russia. Later, she ran a girls' school for Romanian Greeks in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. During the 1920s, she went to universities in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

and Paris. She studied the Byzantines under

Gabriel Millet Gabriel Millet (17 April 1867 – 8 May 1953) was a French archaeologist and historian. Biography After he passed his agrégation of history in 1891, Gabriel Millet became a member of the French School at Athens, then director of the École ...

and earned a PhD while attending school in Paris. In 1933, Kotta applied for a job at the

University of Thessaloniki A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, aiming to teach a course about the people's public and private lives in Byzantine times. Her application was rejected, possibly on the basis of her gender. In the 1930s, Kotta became involved with Greece's archaeological community. She wrote for the ''Archaiologiki Ephimeris'', one of Greece's prominent archaeological journals. In the journal's 1937 edition, Kotta published a piece about a rare icon of

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

. That same year, she was a member of the

Archaeological Society of Athens The Archaeological Society of Athens (Greek: Εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία) is an independent learned society. Also termed the Greek Archaeological Society, it was founded in 1837 by Konstantinos Bellios, just a fe ...

. During the early 1900s, though the sciences in Greece were male-dominated, some women entered careers as archaeologists. In the decades between

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

WWII 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 opposin ...

, two women were appointed to the state-run

Greek Archaeological Service The Greek Archaeological Service ( el, Αρχαιολογική Υπηρεσία) is a state service, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture, responsible for the oversight of all archaeological excavations, museums and the country's ar ...

. Contemporary activist

Avra Theodoropoulou Avra Theodoropoulou ( el, Αύρα Θεοδωροπούλου; 3 November 1880 – 20 January 1963) was a Greek music teacher, pianist, suffragist and women's rights activist. She founded the League for Women's Rights in 1920 and served as its ch ...

called their promotion a "feminist victory". After the authoritarian Prime Minister

Ioannis Metaxas Ioannis Metaxas (; el, Ιωάννης Μεταξάς; 12th April 187129th January 1941) was a Greek military officer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for t ...

came to power in 1936, a law was passed which forbade women from joining the Archaeological Service. Women already employed there could continue to work, but they couldn't become the directors of museums or archaeological programs. No women joined the Service until the law was abolished in 1955, with two exceptions. Venetia Kotta was one such exception. She joined the Archaeological Service under the special circumstance of

. She worked in the

Byzantine Museum The Byzantine and Christian Museum ( el, Βυζαντινό και Χριστιανικό Μουσείο, links=no) is situated at Vassilissis Sofias Avenue in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 1914, and houses more than 25,000 exhibits with rare ...

for over a decade. She became a curator of the Byzantine Museum in 1943, specializing in Byzantine textiles and other handmade artifacts. Kotta worked at the

until her death in 1945.

Writing

Venetia Kotta wrote about Byzantine

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

. * * * *

References

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotta, Venetia People from Samsun Greek women archaeologists Greek archaeologists 20th-century archaeologists Year of birth uncertain 1945 deaths Pontic Greeks Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Greece