GetWiki

{{short description|British art historian}}{{good article}}{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}{{Use British English|date=July 2015}}

factoids

| birth_place = Campden Hill, London, England16 September 1963|3 November 1894}}| death_place = Easebourne, England| death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = Honorary Keeper of Greek Antiquities; archaeologist working in Greece and Turkey| education = Newnham College, Cambridge| employer = Fitzwilliam Museum| occupation = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}Winifred Lamb (3 November 1894 – 16 September 1963) was a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator who specialised in Greek, Roman, and Anatolian cultures and artefacts. The bulk of her career was spent as the honorary keeper (curator) of Greek antiquities at the University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum from 1920 to 1958, and the Fitzwilliam Museum states that she was a “generous benefactor ... raising the profile of the collections through groundbreaking research, acquisitions and publications.“Fitzwilliam Museum AntiquitiesShe directed archaeological excavations in Greece and Turkey; was a founding member of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara; and was the author of numerous books on Greek and Roman antiquities, including the 1929 publication Greek and Roman Bronzes, which was standard reading for studies on the subject.

Early life and education

Lamb was born on 3 November 1894 at Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, London. She was the daughter of Edmund Lamb, who was a Member of Parliament from 1906 to 1910, and Mabel Lamb (née Winkworth), an alumna of Newnham College, Cambridge, who was active in the promotion of women’s university education and women’s suffrage.ODNB, Lamb, Winifred (1894–1963), archaeologist and museum curator, en, 10.1093/ref:odnb/67872, 2004, BOOK, Winifred Lamb: Aegean Prehistorian and Museum Curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 9781784918798, Oxford, 11–12, Lamb was educated at home by governesses and tutors,BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 15, 18, 1042418677, and from 1913 to 1917 attended Newnham, studying Classics with a specialisation in Classical Archaeology, and earning first-class marks (although at this point women could not receive degrees from Cambridge).BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 20–33, 1042418677, While a student she participated in archaeological fieldwork at prehistoric sites near Cambridge led by Thomas McKenny Hughes; she was also active in politics, attending meetings of the Union of Democratic Control, a left-wing group opposed to militarism.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 23–28, 1042418677,

Intelligence work during World War I

After completing her studies in the summer of 1917, Lamb worked in a hospital for soldiers.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 34, 1042418677, In January 1918, she joined ‘Room 40’, the cryptanalysis section of the British Naval Intelligence Department, where she probably worked on the decipherment of coded messages sent to German submarines, leaving after the end of the war, in December 1918.BOOK, Classics in 19th and 20th Century Cambridge: Curriculum, Culture and Community, Gill, David W.J., Cambridge Philological Society, 1998, 0-906014-23-9, Stray, Christopher, Cambridge, 135–156, Winifred Lamb and the Fitzwilliam Museum, BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 38–46, 1042418677, It was here that Lamb met John Beazley, a renowned archaeologist also working in British Intelligence, who encouraged her in her research.NEWS,arthistorians.info/lambw, Lamb, Winifred, 21 February 2018, Dictionary of Art Historians, 25 September 2018, en, During this time she also attended sales of antiquities, publishing an article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies on a collection of vases she purchased in one sale,JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1918, Seven Vases from the Hope Collection1, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, en, 38, 27–36, 10.2307/625673, 2041-4099, 625673, 164183304,zenodo.org/record/1518783, as well as carrying out some cataloguing work in the British Museum.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 34–47, 1042418677,

Fitzwilliam Museum

}}}}Lamb began working at the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in October 1918, at the invitation of Sydney Cockrell: her initial duties included writing labels for items on display.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 47–9, 1042418677, In 1920, she was appointed as Honorary Keeper (Curator) of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam; in this position, she arranged new displays (including the creation of displays focusing on prehistoric and Cycladic material), sorted and catalogued the collections, and enhanced them by acquiring new materials through purchases and donations, as well as donating numerous items herself (especially bronzes and pottery).BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 90–98, 136–157, 1042418677, Key publications from her work at the Fitzwilliam include a book on Greek and Roman bronze statuesBOOK,books.google.com/books?id=Ghi4AAAAIAAJ, Ancient Greek and Roman Bronzes, Lamb, Winifred, 1929, Argonaut, en, and two volumes of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Corpus of Ancient Vases).BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=XPMMuQEACAAJ&q=winifred+lamb, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain. Cambridge—Fitzwilliam Museum, Lamb, Winifred, 1930, University Press, en, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=ZkLMswEACAAJ&q=winifred+lamb, Corpvs Vasorvm Antiquorvm: Cambridge 2, Fitzwilliam Museum, Lamb, Winifred, 1936, en, Throughout her time at the Fitzwilliam, Lamb also worked as an archaeologist in Greece and later Turkey. By the time she retired from the role of Honorary Keeper in August 1958, she had become one of the museum’s greatest benefactors of Greek and Roman antiquities.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 224, 226–228, 1042418677,

Excavations in Greece

Lamb first visited Greece in May 1920, briefly joining the excavations at Mycenae led by Alan Wace.David W. J. Gill. Anatolian Studies. Vol. 50, (2000)PreviewBOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 58–9, 1042418677, She was admitted to the British School at Athens as a student for the academic year of 1920–1921, and spent the year visiting archaeological sites in Attica, the Peloponnese, and Crete, attending lectures in the British School and other archaeological schools, and working on the frescoes found at Mycenae.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 62–83, 1042418677, In May 1921 she joined the Mycenae excavation team and was made responsible for the excavation of the palace as well as for the publication of the frescoes.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 83–6, 1042418677, JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1921, Excavations at Mycenae III: The Frescoes from the Ramp House, Annual of the British School at Athens, 24, 189–99, 10.1017/s0068245400010169, 192971032, In the next excavation season, May–June 1922, Lamb was appointed as second-in-command of the dig, with particular responsibility for excavating the tombs near the settlement (including the tholos Tomb of Aegisthus) and co-authored many of the excavation reports with Wace.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 104–12, 1042418677, JOURNAL, Holland, Leicester B., Lamb, Winifred, Wace, A. J. B., 1923, § VIII.—The Palace, Annual of the British School at Athens, en, 25, 147–282, 10.1017/S0068245400010340, 183127246, 2045-2403, Lamb next joined the British School’s excavation at Sparta in spring 1924, and subsequently excavated with Walter Abel Heurtley in northern Greece, at the site of Vardaroftsa near Thessaloniki in 1925 and at Sarátse in 1929.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 115–28, 1042418677, From 1928, she began looking for her own site to direct excavations; her work in northern Greece, with a focus on the links between the southern Balkans, the northern Aegean, and northwest Anatolia, led her to explore the island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 129, 158, 1042418677, After a trial excavation at Methymna, where she found evidence of occupation from at least the seventh century BCE until the Roman period, she and her colleague Richard Wyatt Hutchinson identified prehistoric pottery at the site of Thermi. Lamb led excavations on this site from 1929 to 1933, largely funded at her own expense, discovering a series of prehistoric settlements. She visited the archaeological excavation of Troy in 1930 and 1932, which inspired further work, allowing her to associate Thermi towns IV and V with Troy IIa, and gave a lecture, expanding on these views, as part of the 1936 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts on British Archaeological Discoveries in Greece and Crete 1886–1936.David W. J. Gill, A Rich and Promising Site: Winifred Lamb (1894–1963), Kusura and Anatolian archaeology in Anatolian Studies, Vol 50 (2000) pp1–10 Lamb published her results from Thermi as a book in 1936 – for which she was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from Cambridge in 1940, examined by V. Gordon Childe and Carl Blegen – and provided a selection of finds from the dig to the Fitzwilliam Museum’s prehistoric gallery.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 158–70, 196–7, 1042418677, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=OolxBAAAQBAJ&q=winifred+lamb, Excavations at Thermi in Lesbos, Lamb, Winifred, 2 October 2014, Cambridge University Press, 9781107433106, en, She subsequently conducted excavations at Antissa (1931–33; also on Lesbos), where she discovered prehistoric, archaic, classical, and Hellenistic settlements and burials, and at the archaic sanctuary of Apollo Phanaios at Kato Phano on Chios (1934).JOURNAL, Lamb, W., 1931, Antissa, The Annual of the British School at Athens, en, 31, 166–178, 10.1017/S0068245400011710, 246243768, 0068-2454, JOURNAL, Lamb, W., 1932, Antissa, Annual of the British School at Athens, en, 32, 41–67, 10.1017/S006824540000397X, 246245577, 2045-2403, BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 170–9, 1042418677, JOURNAL, Lamb, W., 1935, Excavations at Kato Phana in Chios, Annual of the British School at Athens, en, 35, 138–164, 10.1017/S0068245400007413, 163176555, 2045-2403,

Excavations in Turkey

Lamb’s archaeological work on Lesbos had focused on links between Thermi and Troy; after this, she turned her attention to ancient Anatolia (modern Turkey), following in the footsteps of other female archaeologists, including Gertrude Bell, Margaret Hardie, and Dorothy Lamb (no relation), who had excavated there before the war. Lamb selected the site of Kusura, conducting a trial excavation in 1935 with Elinor W. Gardner and full excavations in 1936 and 1937 with James Rivers Barrington Stewart, Eleanor Mary Barrington Stewart, Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop, R.H. Macartney, and Nine Six; as well as excavating the cemetery, finds included a cult site and pottery relating to Troy VI.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W. J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 181–9, 1042418677, JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1937, Excavations at Kusura near Afyon Karahisar, Archaeologia, 86, 1–64, 10.1017/s0261340900015332, JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1938, Excavations at Kusura near Afyon Karahisar II, Archaeologia, 87, 217–273, 10.1017/s0261340900010547, Lamb presented her findings in a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries in London on ‘Recent developments in the prehistory of Anatolia’ in 1937, pointing out Kusura’s location on a major Bronze Age route between central Anatolia and the Aegean. A second lecture to the Society of Antiquaries in 1938 similarly emphasized Kusura’s relationships with both of these areas.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W. J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 190, 1042418677, Lamb also published the Anatolian material held by the Fitzwilliam Museum. She felt that more excavation was required in Anatolia, but her work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II.Lamb was a founding member of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, whose creation was initiated in 1946 by John Garstang, and served as its honorary secretary from its formal opening in 1948 until 1957, when she resigned from this role and took on the position of vice president.Getzel M. Cohen, Martha Sharp Joukowsky. Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists. University of Michigan 2004.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W. J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 214–20, 1042418677, Her work for the BIAA included a programme for the BBC on the Institute and Turkish archaeology, broadcast shortly after the BIAA’s creation in 1948; a review of the development of Anatolian archaeology, especially work published in Turkish and German;JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1949, New Developments in Early Anatolian Archaeology, IRAQ, 11, 2, 188–293, 10.2307/4241696, 4241696, 163328429, and a project on the cultures of north-eastern Anatolia in the third millennium BCE, conducted at Erzerum and Trabzon in 1952 and published in 1954.JOURNAL, Lamb, Winifred, 1954, The Culture of North-East Anatolia and its Neighbours, Anatolian Studies, 4, 21–32, 10.2307/3642372, 3642372, 128759930,

BBC work during World War II

In late 1941 Lamb joined the BBC’s European Intelligence Unit as a Greek language supervisor, and she was probably responsible for an intelligence report of 17 November 1941 relating to BBC broadcasts to Greece and the Greek resistance to the German occupation.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 201–2, 1042418677, In January 1942 she transferred to the Near Eastern Department’s Turkish section, where she continued to work until 1946: her responsibilities included preparing bi-monthly intelligence reports on Turkish radio services and newspapers, and briefing Turkish journalists based in London; she also worked on reports relating to Iran and Arabic-speaking countries.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 202–10, 1042418677, In October 1944 Lamb was seriously injured when a V2 rocket hit her lodgings in north London and required a long period of recuperation, returning to work in late April 1945. Following the end of the war, she resigned from the BBC in February 1946.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W.J., 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 210–13, 1042418677,

Later life

Lamb retired from her post at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1958, having become one of the museum’s greatest benefactors of Greek and Roman antiquities. She continued to be involved with the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, but from 1959 her health deteriorated, often preventing her from attending meetings of the institute.BOOK, Winifred Lamb : Aegean prehistorian and museum curator, Gill, David W. J., Archaeopress, 2018, 978-1784918798, Oxford, 230–1, 1042418677, She died of a stroke on 16 September 1963 in the Cottage Hospital at Easebourne.

Selected publications

Books

• Greek and Roman Bronzes (Argonaut, 1929)
• Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain. Cambridge – Fitzwilliam Museum I & II (Oxford University Press, 1930 & 1936)
• Excavations at Thermi in Lesbos (Cambridge University Press, 1936)

Articles

• ’’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 38 (1918), pp. 27–36
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 24 (1921), pp. 189–99
• ’, Annual of the British School at Athens 25 (1923), pp. 147–282 (with A. Wace & L. Holland)
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 26 (1925), pp. 72–77
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 27 (1926), pp. 133–48
• ’’ ,Annual of the British School at Athens 28 (1927), pp. 96–106
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 28 (1927), pp. 82–95
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 30 (1930), pp. 1–52 (with R.W. Hutchinson)
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 31 (1931), pp. 148–65 (with J.K. Brock)
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 31 (1931), pp. 166–178
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 32 (1932), pp. 41–67
• ’’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 52 (1932), pp. 1–12
• ’Schliemann’s Prehistoric Sites in the Troad’, Prähistorische Zeitschrift 23 (1932), pp. 111–31
• ’’, Antiquity 6:21 (1932), pp. 71–81
• ’’, Annual of the British School at Athens 35 (1935), pp. 138–64
• ’’, Archaeologia 86 (1937), pp. 1–64
• ‘’, Archaeologia 87 (1938), pp. 217–273
• ‘’, Annual of the British School at Athens 39 (1939), pp. 88–89 (with H. Bancroft)
• ’’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 60 (1940), pp. 96–98 (with F.N. Pryce)
• ’’, IRAQ 11:2 (1949), pp. 188–293
• ‘’, Annual of the British School at Athens 46 (1951), pp. 75–80
• ’’, Anatolian Studies 4 (1954), pp. 21–32
• ’’, Anatolian Studies 6 (1956), pp. 87–94

Sources

• Biography: David W.J. Gill (2018), Winifred Lamb: Aegean Prehistorian and Museum Curator (Archaeopress, Oxford)
• David W.J. Gill (1998), ‘Winifred Lamb and the Fitzwilliam Museum’, in C. Stray (ed.), Classics in 19th and 20th Century Cambridge: Curriculum, Culture and Community (Cambridge Philological Society, Cambridge), pp. 135–156
• Dictionary of Art Historians entry
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry

References

{{Reflist}}{{Authority control}}