Sterling Dow Papers

COLLECTION OVERVIEW

Collection Number: GR ASCSA SD 040
Name(s) of Creator(s): Sterling Dow (1903-1995)
Title: Sterling Dow Papers
Date [bulk]: 1931-1967
Date [inclusive]:
Language (s): English
Quantity: 0.50 linear meter
Summary: This small collection consists of Sterling Dow's classroom and field trip notebooks, photograph albums and three catalogues of inscriptions from the 1930s when he was at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; over twenty articles, notes and drafts written (probably) in 1966 and 1967 when he was the Annual Professor at the School. In addition there is a notebook of Elizabeth Dow, Dow’s wife, dating to the 1930s; James H. Oliver’s catalogue of Agora inscriptions; and a binder labeled “Mount Olympus Thessaly–Greece Notes and Correspondence.”
Immediate Source of Acquisition: Rob Loomis,1996, 2022.
Information about Access: The collection is available for research
Cite as: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Sterling Dow Papers (Αμερικανική Σχολή Κλασικών Σπουδών στην Αθήνα, Αρχείο Sterling Dow)
Note: The collection was processed by Lizabeth Ward Papageorgiou. The slides that came in 2022 were processed by Jennifer Bakatselou.

For more information, please contact the Archives:
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens
54 Souidias Street, Athens 106 76, Greece
phone: + 30 213 000 2400 (ext. 425)
Contact via E-mail

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Sterling Dow was born 19 November 1903 in Portland, Maine. He attended Harvard College and received a BA in 1925 with honors in philosophy; he won the Fiske Scholarship to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge for one year and then received his MA from Harvard in 1928. In 1931, he married Elizabeth “Libby” Sanderson Flagg and moved to Athens, where he was associated with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 1931 to 1936. In 1936, he received his PhD from Harvard.  From 1936 until his retirement in 1970, Dow taught at Harvard College, first as a tutor and instructor (1936-1941), then Associate Professor (1941-1946), Professor of History and Greek (1946-1948), and, in 1949, he was appointed the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology. During World War II, he worked in military intelligence (Office of Strategic Services) in Cairo.

Sterling Dow was known primarily for his work in Greek epigraphy and history, but his interests were not limited to those fields and during his career he wrote five books and more than 150 articles and reviews covering many subjects. When Dow was in Athens in the 1930s, he met and worked with the great epigrapher, Johannes Kirchner, and, at that time, Dow developed a new technique for making portable squeezes of inscriptions. In the succeeding years he collected a vast collection of squeezes of Athenian public and private inscriptions.

After WWII, he turned his attention to encouraging and improving the teaching of classics in secondary schools: he founded Teachers of Classics in New England, he was instrumental in a revised edition of a standard Greek reference grammar and a new textbook for beginning Greek. Dow also helped found the journal Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies and was the founding father of Archaeology. He served as president of the Archaeological Institute of America and was a founder of the American Research Center in Egypt.

Sterlng was the Annual Professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 1966-1967 and also taught at the College Year in Athens and the Aegean Institute. After his retirement he taught at Boston College, was the Blegen Distinguished Professor at Vassar, the Sather Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Walker-Ames Professor at the University of Washington. Sterling Dow died 9 January 1995.

Biographical information from:  Emily Vermuele, “Sterling Dow, 1903–1995” American Journal of Archaeology 99 (1995) 729-30; and Donald H. Fleming, “Sterling Dow: Faculty of Arts and Sciences – Memorial Minute (Harvard College)”
 

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SCOPE AND CONTENT

This small collection, which came into the possession of the ASCSA Archives in 1996, contains Sterling Dow’s classroom and field trip notebooks, photograph albums and three catalogues of inscriptions from the 1930s when he was at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; over twenty articles, notes and drafts written (probably) in 1966 and 1967 when he was the Annual Professor at the School. In addition there is a notebook of Elizabeth Dow, Sterling Dow’s wife, dating to the 1930s; James H. Oliver’s catalogue of Agora inscriptions; and a binder labeled “Mount Olympus Thessaly–Greece Notes and Correspondence.”

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CONTENTS LIST

BOX 1 : Notebooks and Photo Albums (all but the last item probably date 1930s)

Notebook – James H. Oliver, Agora Excavations: The Inscriptions (nd)
Notebook – Sterling Dow, ASCSA (a catalogue, untitled, undated)
Notebook – Sterling Dow, ASCSA: Catalogue of Finds, Inscriptions (nd)
Photo Album – Sterling Dow, “Hymettian Quarries” (b/w snapshots) (nd)
Photo Album – Sterling Dow, “Attika” (b/w snapshots of sites, objects, landscape, some people)
Photo Album – Sterling Dow, “Athens” (b/w snapshots of sites, objects, the city)
Photograph – Johannes Kirchner and unidentified man at Markopoulo (1935 or 1936)
Photographs (4) – Machteld Mellink, Virginia Grace, Sterling Dow, D. F. Ogden and others on summit of hill over-looking the Marathonian Plain taken by Crawford Greenewalt, (Summer 1960?)

BOX 2 : Notebooks and Binder

Sterling Dow’s handwritten notebooks labeled:
“Archaics 1150-470”
“Architecture – Topography of Athens”
“Attika – Karo”
“Classics”
“Dialects: Karo, Payne, Hill”
“Hellenistics”
“KPHTH Summer School Program 1960”
“Northern Trip 1931”
“Notes on Sparta for Southern Trip 1931”
“O. Broneer North Slope (1934 or 1935)”
“Olympia / Attica”
“Prehistorics” (and) “Reading for ASCSA Exams 1932/3”
“R. Carpenter Lectures Winter 1931/2 Athens Acropolis Mouseion, Ethnikon Mouseion” (and) “Carpenter on Sculpture” 
“Southern Trip 1931”

Notebook of “Elizabeth Dow”

Binder: “Mount Olympus Thessaly – Greece Notes and Correspondence (1913-1934)
(Correspondence, photographs, newspaper articles, bills and advertisements—not in chronological order—relating to the first known ascent of the highest peak of Mount Olympus by Fred Boissonas, a Geneva photographer, and Daniel Baud-Bovy. Francis P. Farquhar, a climber and member of the American Sierra Club, communicated with Boissonas about his own attempted ascent of Olympus with Dr. Aristides Phoutrides at about the same time as Boissonas’ ascent and requested permission to use Boissonas’ photographs in a book he was going to write about Mount Olympus.

Note: This material would be of great interest to mountaineers and has as well some very interesting references to World War I. Only one reference to the American School was made in a letter written by Farquhar to Boissonas on 11 May 1918, “Dr. Phoutrides wrote me last fall that he had received word that a party including some American students at Athens had made the ascent of Olympus during the summer of 1917[...] ”. It is not known why this binder was included in the papers of Sterling Dow.

BOX 3: Sterling Dow’s Writings

Folder 1:  “The Agora: Past, 1966/67 and Future” (1967)
Folder 2:  “Argolid – Corinthia Trip” (1966) – notes, maps, sketches
Folder 3:  “ASCSA Suggestions for the Next Decade” (1967)
Folder 4:  “An Automated Lecture” (nd)
Folder 5:  “Commando and Other Special Operations in the Bronze Age and in Homer” Lecture at College Year in Athens (1967)
Folder 6:  “The Coup of 21 April 1967 in Greece: Excerpt from a letter by S. Dow to W. M. Canaday” (18 August 1967)
Folder 7:  “The Foundation and its Principles” (1967)
Folder 8:  “The Handling of a Collection of Classical Off-prints” (1963-1965)
Folder 9:  “Harriet Boyd Hawes: Excavating and Theorizing” (nd)
Folder 10: Island Marble (nd)
Folder 11: “The Latin Calligraphy from Hawara” (nd)
Folder 12: “The Names of Sikyon” (nd)
Folder 13: “New Aspects of Classical Athens” Lecture at Rice Institute, Houston, Texas, 19 March 1965
Folder 14: “Northern Trip” (1966) – notes, maps, sketches
Folder 15: “Notes for the Study of the Archaic Grave Monuments” (nd)
Folder 16: “Report of the Annual Professor” (1966-1967)
Folder 17: “Review of Corinth: Results of Excavations: The Inscriptions, VIII:3, 1966 (nd)
Folder 18: “School Trips Winter” (1966/67)
Folder 19: “The Security of the Knosson Treasure” (nd)
Folder 20: “Six Athenian Sacrificial Calendars” (nd)
Folder 21: “Sounion Temple and other Attic Sites” (1966/67) – notes, maps, sketches
Folder 22: “Studies by Students at the ASCSA in 1966/67 (1967)
Folder 23: “The Supports of the Great Beam in the Erectheion” (nd)
Folder 24: “Tuesday Afternoon Talks at Loring Hall” (1967) – schedule, correspondence, notes from talks
Folder 25: Unidentified pages from draft(s) (nd)
Folder 26: “Visit to Mastores Marble Workshop” (1967)

BOX 4: Notebook and Photo Album

Notebook – Sterling Dow, ASCSA, Catalogue: Inscriptions (nd)
Photo Album – Unlabeled, undated (b/w snapshots of sites in Greece and ?)

BOX 5: Slides [Acc# 2022-17]

The order and titles of the slides are listed here as they appeared in the slide boxes. Slide captions are reproduced as written on the original slide. Loose slides were arranged by subject, type, and put into chronological order. Any changes that have been made are only for clarification.

LETTER
Page 1: Letter to Sterling Dow from David Krol, 18 October 1973

LOOSE SLIDES
Page 2:
Milman Perry, p.11 [slide] # 6
Rhys Carpenter, p. 12 [slide] #14
Plain of Sparta, pg. 18 [slide] #25
Knossos LMIII […?], [...?] Boardman […?] p. 82
Korinthos – Bema
Menidi Tomb
Youth in Greek-Turk Costume; Greece Economides 72
Akropolis wall (+Lykabettos) - Drums of Old Parthenon; En Grѐce 16
Navarino Cliffs at the 1200 m. pass Sphakteria above; below mainland; En Grѐce 56
Delos, street; En Grѐce 85
Delos, House of ?; En Grѐce 86
Apulian Plate; Encyc dell’Arte Antica

Page 3:
Salonika, Arch of Galerius
Salonika, Arch of Galerius
Salonika, Arch of Galerius
Bust of Evans + West court of Knossos
Eleutherai, Panakton; Greenwald
Pergamene Altar, northerly projection; Evem Schmidt, Altar Pergamum [slide] #6
Pergamene Altar, East: Athens group; Evem Schmidt, Pergamum Altar [slide] #10
Pergamene Altar, East; Klytios, Hekate, Otos, Artemis; Evem Schmidt, Pergamum Altar [slide] #15
Pergamon Altar, north, Aphrodite opponent of Dione; Evem Schmidt, Aphrodite group + opponent of Dione, [slide] #39
Pergamon Altar, north, opponent of Aphrodite, head; Evem Schmidt, Pergamum Altar [slide] #41
Pergamon Altar, east, Head of Giant Klytios; Evem Schmidt, Pergamum Altar [slide] #44
Pergamon Altar, east; Opponent of Artemis, head, Evem Schmidt, Perg Altar [slide] #45
Pergamon Altar, east; Head of Alkyoneus, Evem Schmidt, Perg Altar [slide] #52
Pergamon Altar, north, Head of Nyx; Evem Schmidt, Nyx, Pergamon Altar [slide] #56
Pergamene Altar, model, front (west side); Evem Schmidt, Altar Pergamum [slide] #70

Page 4:
Lion at Amphipolis
Schliemann’s tomb from E
Schliemann’s tomb from S
Schliemann’s tomb from N
ΜΑΚΕΔΩΝ, mosaics at Pella
Macedon, mosaics at Pella, DETAIL: figure at left
Macedon, mosaics at Pella, Head of figure at right
Delphi ‘80’
Crete paint shop
Cretan
Priest on Crete
Mantinea tower
Slide, no caption
Slide, no caption

LECTURE SLIDES
Page 5:
Envelopes DELPHI, Temple from air/Marathon, Mound/ Thermopylai/Xerxes’ Canal

Page 6:
Envelopes Pylos-Sphakteria/No title

Page 7:
From envelope – DELPHI: Temple from air
Slide: Delphi: air of Theater, Temple, Sac. Way; Schoder

From envelope – Marathon, mound
Slide: A11 MARATHON: mound over fallen, 490 BC

From envelope – Thermopylai
Slides: A12 THERMOPYLAE: E pass from air
Thermopylae ?; mound
Thermopylae; close up, approximate proper width for that time

From envelope – Xerxes’ Canal
Slide: A20 XERXES’ CANAL: air view

From envelope – Pylos – Sphakteria
Slides: B8 SPHACTERIA: bay, from West
Sphacteria

Page 8:
From envelope –No title
Slides: B12 DELOS: air view, Rhenea at left; Rheneia, Delos
B13 SYROS: Syra town from bay

Page 9:
Box – Slides for Athens Lecture – slides used at BC are in envelopes, followed by those not used [slide order as appeared in the box]

Page 10&11:
Envelope – Frag A
Slides: Frag A, Later side, EM 6721 + 8001
Frag A, Later side, VG II 1357 Text, Hesp. 1935
Frag A, Later side, SD Transcript part
Frag A, Later side, Text SD
Thicker Wall, Later side, Frag A, Slabs 1-2 Recon, poor slide
Thicker Wall, Later Side, Frag A, Slabs 1-2 Recon, better slide

Page 12&13:
Envelope – Frag C
Slides: Thicker Wall, Later side, Frag C, Diagram in English to show scheme
Thicker Wall, Later side, Frag C, Drawing of Greek to show scheme
I 727, Later side, Frag C
Frag F both sides, Ross transcript
Frag C I727, Col II upper part to show scheme
Frag F, IG I 533-534, Kirchhoff
Frag F, KHPYI OIN etc
Frag F, ΒΟΛΡΧΟΗ etc

Page 14:
No envelope
Slides: Frag F, MFIŦEY
Frag F, Later side, SD Text
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag C, Slabs reconstructed, better slide
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag C, Slabs reconstructed, poorer slide

Page 15&16:
Envelope – Frag E
Slides: Frag E, I4310
Thicker wall, Later, Frag E, Diagram, SD readings, Mark 6
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag E, SD Text, Mark 6
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag E, Slabs 7-8, Recon, better slide

Page 17:
No envelope
Slides: Thicker wall, Later side, Frag E, Slabs 7-8, Recon, poorer slide
Frag E, SD Transcript, Mark 6
Frag E, Text, Mark 5
Frag E, SD Transcript, Mark 1

Page 18&19:
Envelope – Frag F
Slides: Frag F, I²844-845, Hiller
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag F, Oinoe Sac Reconstructed, poorer slide
Thicker wall, Later side, Frag F, Oinoe Sac Reconstructed, better slide

Page 20:
Envelope – Frag G
Slides: Frag G, Later side, I351?
Thinner Wall, Later, Frag G, DELIAN
Thinner Wall, Both sides, Frag G, as pub in Hesp[eria] 1934, better slide

No envelope
Slide: Thinner wall, Both sides, Frag G, as pub in Hesp[eria] 1934, poorer slide

Page 21&22:
Envelope – Reconstruction
Slides: Thicker wall, Later side, drawing of two biennial rubrics
Thicker wall, both sides, RECONSTRUCTION, better slide
Thicker wall, both sides, Reconstruction, poorer slide
Thicker wall, Earlier side, 3 frags in Reconstruction, poor slide
Thicker wall, Earlier side, 3 frags in Reconstruction, better slide

Page 23-27:

GLASS PLATE NEGATIVES
16 Slides, no caption
Roman Coins with Ships, II, My photo from Numis Soc
Roman Coins with Ships, I, My photo, from Numis Soc
Greek and Roman Coins, Ships, My photo from Numis Soc

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