Mabel Louise Lang (November 12, 1917 – July 21, 2010) was an American archaeologist and scholar of

Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

and

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. ...

an culture.

Biography

Lang took her first degree at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1939 and was awarded her PhD at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...

in 1943, when she also joined the faculty of the college. She was a faculty member there until 1991 and professor emerita until her death. She was appointed as

Paul Shorey Paul Shorey Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. (August 3, 1857 – April 24, 1934) was an American classical scholar. Biography Shorey was born at Davenport, Iowa. After graduating from Harvard in 1878, he studied in Europe at Leipzig, Bonn, Athens, ...

Professor of Greek in 1971. That same year, she was elected to 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 ...

. In 1981 she was elected a Fellow of 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, a ...

. She was the author of several books on Classical Greek law and culture, and was a contributor to the deciphering of the Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos. She was also the first, in 1969, to attempt to interpret the patterns on the painted floors of the

megaron The megaron (; grc, μέγαρον, ), plural ''megara'' , was the great hall in very early Mycenean and ancient Greek palace complexes. Architecturally, it was a rectangular hall that was surrounded by four columns, fronted by an open, two ...

at Pylos, suggesting that the designs represented different types of stone. As well as her publications on the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

frescoes and Linear B tablets at Pylos, she also wrote works on the Greek

historiographers Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

and

Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...

, and on the excavations of the Athenian Agora with the

American School of Classical Studies at Athens , 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 = , m ...

, on which she worked as an archaeologist. In 1982 she delivered the Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College, and these were later published as ''Herodotean Narrative and Discourse''. The body of unfinished work which she left at her death was published posthumously by her colleagues in 2011 as ''Thucydidean Narrative and Discourse''. A memorial for her was held at Bryn Mawr College on April 3, 2011.

Selected works

*
The Athenian Citizen
' (1960, revised 2004 by John McK. Camp II). Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *''The Athenian Agora Volume x: Athenian Weights, Measures, and Tokens'' (1964, with Margaret Crosby) Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *''The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia: Vol. II, The Frescoes'' (1966). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press for the University of Cincinnati. *
Waterworks in the Athenian Agora
' (1968). American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *
Graffiti in the Athenian Agora
' (1974, revised 1988). Oxford: Oxbow Books. *''The Athenian Agora Volume xxi: Graffiti and Dipinti'' (1975). American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *
Cure and Cult in Ancient Corinth : A Guide to the Asklepieion
' (1977) Meriden, Conn: Meriden Gravure. *
Socrates in the Agora
' (1978). Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *''Herodotean Narrative and Discourse'' (1984). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. *''The Athenian Agora Volume xxv: Ostraka'' (1990). American School of Classical Studies at Athens. *
Life, Death and Litigation in the Athenian Agora
' (1994). Oxford: Oxbow Books. *''Thucydidean Narrative and Discourse'' (2011). (Mabel Lang, edited by Jeffrey S. Rusten and Richard Hamilton) Ann Arbor: Michigan Classical Press.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lang, Mabel 1917 births 2010 deaths American archaeologists American classical scholars Women classical scholars Bryn Mawr College alumni Columbia University alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Classical scholars of Bryn Mawr College Classical archaeologists American women archaeologists 21st-century American women Members of the American Philosophical Society