Gardner, Percy

Related Category: Archaeology: Biographies

1846–1937, English classical archaeologist. He served as field assistant to W. M. Flinders Petrie, helping him excavate Naucritus, a Greek settlement in Egypt. From 1887 to 1925 he was professor of archaeology at Oxford, where he was instrumental in building up the archaeology department and its library and collections. His works include The Types of Greek Coins (1883), New Chapters in Greek History (1892), A Manual of Greek Antiquities (with F. B. Jevons, 1895), Principles of Greek Art (1913), A History of Ancient Coinage (1918), and New Chapters in Greek Art (1926). His brother Ernest Arthur Gardner, 1862–1939, was also a classical archaeologist. He served as director of the British School of Archaeology at Athens (1887–95) and as professor of archaeology (1896–1929) and vice chancellor at the Univ. of London. He was prominent in excavations in the Middle East, particularly at Megalopolis and Paphos. His principal work is Handbook of Greek Sculpture (1897, rev. ed. 1915). Other works include Religion and Art in Ancient Greece (1910), The Art of Greece (1925), and Greece and the Aegean (1933).