Jim and Mary at the staff reception
Jim Wright arrived in Athens this summer to become its new director for a five-year term starting June 30th. A professor and chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr (a spawning ground for many notable ASCSA alumni), Professor Wright has had a long association with the American School including Regular and Associate memberships, a stint as Secretary of the School, and Managing Committee member including chair of the Excavation and Survey Committee.
We were able to catch the new Director to ask a few questions just before the new school year starts September 10th.
ASCSA: You have taken on the position at a particularly challenging time in Greece. Do you feel you have to modify your expectations of what you will be able to accomplish over the next 5 years or is it full steam ahead?
JW: We are challenged to trim our already lean operations and to think about the size and nature of our programs in ways that are strategic and economic. Our hard-working colleagues in the Ephoreias and Ministry of Culture have had staffing and budget cuts and we are mindful of the pressures these put on their abilities. Our tireless staff and their families have also been impacted by the austerity measures. Nonetheless, we are pushing ahead with our plans for the future. Times like these are good times to think about and find ways to advance an agenda for the future and, for the ASCSA, it’s always ‘full steam ahead’!
ASCSA: Can you elaborate on what you hope to accomplish?
JW: I hope to advance and carry out as much of the school's Master Plan as feasible, to aim at achieving the goals of the Capital Campaign, to continue to strengthen our relations with the archaeological, educational, and cultural communities here in Greece, and to strengthen the programs of the School. We are primarily a research institute, yet we have an increasingly large public outreach. This is something to build on both in Greece and North America, and in many ways enlarging our base is also a way of guaranteeing our future. As a center of humanistic studies, we are also cutting edge in digital technologies and in the integration of scientific research with archaeological, historical, and philological studies. I hope to continue to advance our reputation in these areas.
ASCSA: Will you be continuing any research while you are at the School? What are you working on?
JW: My wife, Mary, and I are bringing the results of the Neolithic and Mycenaean settlements on Tsoungiza to press through the ASCSA Publications Office, along with the contributions of our many colleagues. We are also working to publish the Mycenaean chamber tomb cemetery at Ayia Sotira, a synergasia between Angus Smith of Brock University (through the Canadian Institute) and Evangelia Pappi, representing the Corinth Ephoreia. I have some articles I am working on, especially on the wider Nemea region through prehistoric and historic times. I’m giving a paper at the Aegaeum conference in Paris in December. But I have no illusions about accomplishing as much as I might like, given the demands of running the School. I have no future fieldwork commitments.
ASCSA: As an educator as well as archaeologist at several excavations, you have long championed preservation of Greece's cultural heritage and have spoken out against artifact theft and trafficking, even testifying at the US State Department a couple years ago in favor of import restrictions on Greek antiquities. Has anything been done to help the situation?
JW: We all champion heritage preservation and our Greek colleagues, especially in the Archaeological Service, are daily confronted by the problems of illicit excavation and trafficking of antiquities. Education and getting out the word are our most powerful tools. The situation has dramatically changed over the past decades thanks to persistent advocacy and an increasingly enlightened legal framework, exemplified by the US State Department’s promotion of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with requesting countries concerning the importation of illicit objects of cultural heritage. The problems that Greece faces may be exacerbated by the economic crisis but the MoU signed in 2011 puts teeth in the Cultural Property Implementation Act and will deter the trade in the US.
ASCSA: Your wife, Mary Dabney, is also a classical archaeologist and scholar. What will she be doing while at the School?
JW: Mary is the driving force behind our Nemea publications. She has research she is pursuing, especially related to medicinal plants and their uses in the Late Bronze Age. She is presenting a poster at the Aegaeum conference in Paris on representations of fig cultivation in Bronze Age Greece. Mary is very interested in issues of heritage management, especially because of her years of experience running museums and historical societies.
ASCSA: Now that you are in Athens full-time, is there anywhere you haven't been that you would like to explore?
JW: I could live in Greece several lifetimes and not explore everything! We have already made it to Thrace in service to the School and managed a few days in Pelion during August. What will be hard will be having to stay in the office when a School trip heads off to places I have never been, with Mellon professor Margie Miles as an expert guide. I both want to reacquaint with places I have not visited in many years and fill in holes in Macedonia, Thessaly, Eurytania, some of the Ionian Islands, Limnos, Thasos, and several islands in the Cyclades.
