The American School of Classical Studies at Athens mourns the passing on September 16th of Charles K. Williams II, former Director of our Corinth Excavations and Chairman of our Board of Trustees.  He was 96 and had been continuously and actively involved with the School for 64 years.  

 

 

He first arrived at the School in 1962 as a Student Associate Member and then held the Corinth Excavations Fellowship (1963/4), followed by the Gorham Phillips Stevens Fellowship (1964–1966).  His association with the School continued until a few months before his death, when he was working on his publication of the Roman frescoes from Corinth and their historical context.
As Director of the Corinth Excavations  from 1966 to 1997, Charles explored almost every part of that large and complex site, from the Iron Age to the late Frankish period.  Every fall, he led the students of the School on a trip through the Corinthia and Argolid, and in the spring he offered expert training in excavation technique, not only for would-be field archaeologists but also for classicists and ancient historians, so that they too would be able to understand and evaluate archaeological evidence.  To more advanced scholars, from all over the world, who were pursuing research at Corinth, he offered a warm and supportive welcome.  Finally, he was the major (but almost always anonymous) benefactor of the Corinth Excavations, providing a substantial endowment for the excavations as a whole, individual fellowship support for dozens of students and more advanced scholars, and the three excavation houses, which he himself, as a trained architect, designed.  Most recently, he funded the two state-of-the art storage and laboratory buildings, where thousands of Roman fresco fragments that he had excavated decades earlier are now being conserved and reassembled.

Apart from Corinth, Charles took a keen interest in the School’s operations in Athens.  In 1997, he joined our Board of Trustees and served as Chairman from 2002 to 2011.  His leadership as Chairman of the Master Planning Committee (2007-2012) led to the renovation and expansion of our entire campus in Athens.   The School’s Alumnae/i Association honored him with their Aristeia Award in 2016, in recognition of his contributions to the School and its students. 

Charles was a modest and intensely private man, always seeking to deflect attention from himself, but the entire School community recognized him as a towering figure, one of the American School's greatest scholars, teachers, and benefactors.

We offer our condolences to his family, friends, and especially to his Corinth colleagues.

William T. Loomis, President of the Trustees
Kathleen M. Lynch, Chair of the Managing Committee
Bonna D. Wescoat, Director of the School
George T. Orfanakos, Executive Director

 


Charles K. Williams II at the Corinth excavation site

 


Charles K. Williams II (center) with the conservation team at Ancient Corinth, whose expertise helped preserve the archaeological treasures of the site

Christopher Pfaff, Director of the Corinth Excavations, addresses the audience during the ceremony honoring Charles K. Williams II with the Gold Medal of the Municipality of Corinth, reflecting on his lasting impact and lifelong contributions