User:UndercoverClassicist/Spyridon Marinatos

Spyridon Nikolaou Marinatos (Σπυρίδων Νικολάου Μαρινάτος; 17 November 1901 – October 1, 1974) was a Greek archaeologist.

Early life and education
Marinatos was born on the Ionian island of Kephallonia on 17 November 1901. His father was a carpenter.

Marinatos was one of the first thirty-six students of the "Practical School of Art History", an archaeological training centre established by the Archaeological Society of Athens at the request of the Greek government, studying there in the 1919–1920 academic year. The school's instructors included noted archaeologists and folklorists such as Panagiotis Kavvadias, Christos Tsountas, Ioannis Svoronos, Adamantios Adamantiou, Konstantinos Kourouniotis, Sokratis Kougeas, Antonios Keramopoulos and Nikolaos Politis (folklorist), while his fellow students included Karouzos and Semni Papaspyridi, later Karouzos's wife.

He studied at the University of Athens, then in Germany at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Halle, which he attended between 1927 and 1929. At Halle, he studied under Georg Karo, the German archaeologist who had excavated the Mycenaean sites of Tiryns and Corfu.

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Archaeological career
He also excavated a Mycenaean cemetery on his native island of Kephallonia.

Between 1937 and 1939, he served as Director General of Antiquities and Historic Monuments..

He was elected as a professor of the University of Athens, where he introduced the first teaching of Near Eastern archaeology.

In 1939, Marinatos visited the United States, to which his former teacher Georg Karo had emigrated in the same year. Karo held a visiting professorship at the University of Cincinnati and asked Marinatos to deliver a lecture there. Marinatos was unable to deliver the lecture, as he was hospitalised with pneumonia, and never met up with Karo in person: instead, Karo sent him a letter containing eleven postcards, all showing an image of the Penn Museum and inscribed with a short greeting, signed pseudonymously "George Barbour". Karo asked Marinatos to send these from Greece to eight addresses in Germany and three in Prague, which had recently been annexed by Nazi Germany. Unsure of Karo's intentions, Marinatos gave the letters to Elizabeth Humlin Hunt, in whose home he had been staying, to dispose of: she handed them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile, two American classicists, Daniel Lewis and Edward Capps, separately denounced Karo to the FBI, on the false belief that he had been part of the German police force in Athens during the First World War. Karo was subpoenaed to testify in his own defence in court: although no evidence was found to connect him with the Nazi regime, he was placed under parole, denied US citizenship, and labelled a "Nazi" in the official records of the affair.Cut this bit shorter.

In 1963, he found the site of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, based on the writings of the ancient Greek topographer Pausanias. (Hunt had apparently excavated here with him before 1939)

He excavated the prehistoric cemetery of Marathon, Tsepi, between 1969 and 1973.

Crete
Marinatos joined the Greek Archaeological Service at the age of 23, and was first posted to the island of Crete. There, he met Arthur Evans, the British archaeologist who had made the first excavations of the site of Knossos, commencing in 1900. He supported Evans's restorations of Knossos, which were often criticised by his fellow archaeologists. Find more on the criticism.

During his time as ephor on Crete, Marinatos was credited with thwarting the efforts of local goldsmiths to produce and sell forged antiquities, which were commissioned by antiquities traders.

Marinatos conducted excavations on Crete between 1919 and 1952. His early excavations on Crete included the Minoan villa sites of Amnisos and Vathypetro. During his excavations at Amnisos, he uncovered a large quantity of volcanic pumice, which led him to suggest that the site – and the Minoan civilisation that inhabited it – had been destroyed by the eruption of the nearby volcanic island of Thera (Santorini).

Survey and excavations in Messenia
Marinatos succeeded Kouroniotis, who died in YEAR.

In 1945, it was decided that the excavations would resume on the same basis of joint enterprise between the Greek Archaeological Service and Blegen's team. Blegen offered to collaborate with Marinatos on the excavation of the palace, but Marinatos opted instead to conduct field survey in the wider area of Messenia, with the aim of finding hitherto-undiscovered Mycenaean cemeteries and settlements.

He first travelled to Messenia in 1952, representing the Archaeological Society of Athens, when he uncovered a wealthy cemetery at Volimidia, around 5 km to the north-east of the palace: he described this discovery as "very encouraging". His method of consulting local farmers and hunters about the location of surface finds allowed him to discover sites hitherto unknown to archaeology. Working in Messenia until 1966, he discovered over twenty archaeological sites, including a monumental building with frescoes at Iklaina, a burial tumulus at Papoulia, the early Mycenaean acropolis of Peristeria and the tholos tomb at Charakopeio.

Akrotiri
His use of reinforced concrete in the restorations at Akrotiri was inspired by Arthur Evans's use of the material in his reconstructions of Knossos.

Personal life
Marinatos generally affected to excavate in a pith helmet.

He had an interest in medicine, astronomy, botany and biology, which informed his archaeological work.

Death and legacy
An Athens newspaper reported Marinatos's death with a headline of "the oak tree of archaeology has fallen".

His death was the result of an accident.

At the time of his death, most of his excavations were not fully published.

"In his archaeological excavations, he was led by his sharp archaeological instincts, a general vision of the ancient world, and an impressive command of ancient Greek literary testimonia. He had the uncanny ability to assess the importance of buried ruins, almost from the first turn of the spade."

His former student, the archaeologist Yannos Lolos, described him as "an archaeologist in the grand tradition". He also called him "an austere and imposing figure" and a gifted speaker. Lolos also said that he was "restless and indefatigable as an excavator".

After Marinatos's death, a bronze bust of him was erected in the garden of the museum at Chora, which holds many finds from his excavations in Messenia; one of the town's major streets is also named after him.

Old material
best known for leading excavations at Akrotiri on Santorini (1967–74), where he died and is buried. He specialized in the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.

His daughter Nanno Marinatos (born 1950) is also a scholar of Minoan culture, and Head of the Classics and Mediterranean Studies Department at University of Illinois at Chicago.

Career
Marinatos began his career in Crete as director of the Heraklion Museum along with Georgia Andrea in 1929 where he met Sir Arthur Evans. He conducted several excavations on Crete at Dreros, Arkalochori, Vathypetro and Gazi, all of which resulted in spectacular finds. In 1937, he became director of the Greek Archaeological Service for the first time. Shortly afterwards, he became a professor at the University of Athens. He turned his attention to the Mycenaeans next, regarding them as the first Greeks. He excavated many Mycenaean sites in the Peloponnese, including an unplundered royal tomb at Routsi, near Pylos. He also dug at Thermopylae and Marathon uncovering the sites where the famous battles had occurred.

His most notable discovery was the site of Akrotiri, a Minoan port city on the island of Thera. The city was destroyed by a massive eruption which buried it under ashes and pumice. The tsunamis created by the eruption destroyed coastal settlements on Crete as well. Guided by the local Nikos Pelekis, Marinatos began excavations in 1967 and died on site in 1974, after suffering a fatal accident. According to one version, he died during the excavation as he was hit by a collapsing wall.

Marinatos was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society as of 1966.

Politics
He was director-general of antiquities for the Greek Ministry of Culture during the Greek military junta of 1967–74 (Regime of the Colonels). The acquaintance he cultivated with the colonels who were in power in Greece, especially the leader of the junta, Georgios Papadopoulos, was ideologically based. Marinatos was a nationalist in many regards whose ideals, some of his political opponents allege, influenced his archaeological work. Although no evidence of "ideological influence" regarding his actual work has ever been proven, his political affiliation created controversy among his academic peers nonetheless, since most of his peers who criticized the military junta, were fired or persecuted by the government of Papadopoulos. Eventually, Marinatos was fired too, by the dictator Ioannides, who made sure to get rid of all the close associates of Papadopoulos when he seized power in 1973.

Books
His Crete and Mycenae was originally published in German in 1960. His most important article was about "the volcanic destruction of Minoan Crete" [Antiquity 1939]. His excavations at Thera have been published in six slender volumes (1968–74). "Life and Art in Prehistoric Thera" was one of his last publications in 1972.

His name is mentioned in the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, which also features a plot involving Thera and the legendary underwater lost city.

The book Voyage to Atlantis, written by James W. Mavor, Jr., details the 1967 excavation of Thera, over which Marinatos presided. The book mentions how Marinatos was, at the same time, aiming to become the Director of Antiquities at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. The book also makes note of the political atmosphere in Greece at the time.

Archaeological sites
Marinatos was responsible for excavations at:
 * Akrotiri (prehistoric city), Thera
 * Amnisos
 * Arkalochori
 * Vathypetro