Κυριακή 7 Ιουνίου 2026

Elizabeth Pierce Blegen, Archaeologist

Elizabeth Pierce

Born June 26, 1888 Died September 21, 1966

Row 13 in the Protestant Section of the First Cemetery

Yes, all the constituents were there: separate, and unsynthesized – waiting for a catalyst (1)

When thinking of the life of Elizabeth “Libbie” Pierce Blegen, the word that comes to mind is “catalyst”, not so much in its meaning as an entity causing reactions without altering because I am sure that she did change over time, but more in the sense of a person who precipitates events without seeming to be the mover herself.

If her mentor Ida Thallon had not seen a promising young student and entered into a romantic relationship with her and had not wanted Elizabeth to experience life as she had once experienced it at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Carl Blegen would not have met Elizabeth and fallen head over heels in love with her. He wanted her in his life so badly that he persuaded his friend and mentor Bert Hodge Hill (then director of the ASCSA) to make a move that would clear the way to his marrying Elizabeth by marrying Ida. Carl then proposed that they all live together as a Quartet.

It was 1924.

Her Life

Elizabeth Denny Pierce was born on June 26, 1888 in Allegheny Pennsylvania. Her parents, Flora McKnight and William Lemmex Pierce, were of Gaelic descent and proud enough of it to use their forebears’ last names as each of their four children’s middle names. Elizabeth (Libbie) grew up with three brothers. She received her AB from Vassar in 1910 and her Masters in Latin in 1912 when she was 22. While a first year student at Vassar, Elizabeth had studied Latin in a class taught by Ida Thallon, a classicist 13 years her senior. Ida would become her friend and mentor and would introduce Elizabeth to the classical world.

Following in the footsteps of Ida, Elizabeth did further graduate studies (including Greek architecture and sculpture), at the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia University between 1912 and 1915 before returning to Vassar in 1915 as an assistant curator of the Vassar Art Museum which had opened its doors in 1865.

The Vassar Art Museum

Vassar believed that fine art was so important to a well rounded education that a gallery for original works and reproductions was included in the original building design. Their collection was created before any public museum of art had opened its doors in the United States. Fine art was deemed a ‘manifestation of moral truth’ and, as if to emphasize that, the founders placed their gallery next to the chapel. Well before Elizabeth’s time, elective courses in art history were opened to all Vassar students for college credits. As the collection grew, new buildings were required. When Elizabeth became assistant curator in 1915, the collection was housed in Taylor Hall.

Taylor Hall

In 1918, Elizabeth also became an instructor of Fine Arts at the college.

Ida and Elizabeth and their Boston Marriage

The term Boston Marriage was coined after Henry James had described such a relationship in his novel The Bostonians. It was a close and abiding relationship between two financially independent women who chose to live together and perhaps not marry at all. At that time, the belief that educated women should eventually marry was firmly entrenched in college circles too. The ‘moral and patriotic’ education provided was supposed to spread beyond each graduate in her future role as wife and mother (2). Perhaps it had not occurred to many at the time that financially independent women might have other goals….

Ida and Elizabeth lived in adjoining rooms at Vassar and formed just such a partnership. It was not uncommon amongst women who were college graduates and very common in these all female campuses where so many graduates returned to teach. Educated women in the general workforce, with the exception of teachers and secretaries, were thin on the ground until after the First World War, and even then…

Elizabeth Attends the ASCSA, Writes a Paper, and Meets Carl Blegen

Ida Thallon had enjoyed her two years at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens between 1901 and 1903. In fact they had been an impetus for her increasing interest in the new science of archaeology and how it related to her own field of history. She and Elizabeth set out for Greece in 1921 to explore and with the idea that Elizabeth might like to join the ASCSA for the school year of 1922-3. Elizabeth did. She believed the School offered an opportunity for her to ‘study material first hand’ as an aid to her teaching back home.

Elizabeth and Ida in 1920

Her classmates were congenial and the subjects interesting. There was even a course in modern Greek. The School’s director Bert Hodge Hill taught ancient architecture and the assistant director, 34 year old Carl Blegen taught prehistory and general topography.

Carl (left) and Bert in 1915

Carl had just completed his book on Korakou, a site in Corinth which had revealed to him and his co-excavator, Alan Wace, a history and chronology for the fascinating prehistoric people who would coalesce into Mycenaeans and the Greeks of the classical period. It was groundbreaking work in the exciting new field of Greek prehistory; an era that could only be understood by digging since no written records existed. (3)

Carl’s book on Korakou can be read on line today

Elizabeth herself was still working to complete her Phd dissertation on Gaius Asinius Pollio a writer and historian who had hobnobbed with Julius Caesar and then retired to write histories and plays.

Her 1922 book can be bought on Amazon or read on line today

As worthy a subject as Pollio was, I am venturing into speculation by guessing that continuing to add a few more footnotes to the well trodden path of Roman history (which she was doing so well) could not have held a candle to myths seeming to come alive and the exciting prehistoric finds at Korakou, Corinth, and elsewhere being revealed and discussed in class by the excavator himself.

While at the School, students were encouraged to take on a project of their own. Elizabeth therefore prepared a small paper on A Daedalid in the Skimatari Museum in Boeotia.

Elizabeth’s daedalid was a little the worse for wear , but it was a start (4)

In her paper, she wonders if the similarity of such figures across much of the Greek world indicated an awareness of the Daedalus myth itself or even if there might have been a Cretan school of such art that then spread to the Peloponnese and farther.

A typical daedalic figure. Who knew they would eventually morph into those beautiful kourai and kouroi with their archaic smiles?

It is a very nice, compact analysis, very suited to her own research talents and begins with the statement that people used to think there was no truth to Greek myths…. So already she is thinking along the lines of Carl Blegen who did not necessarily believe wholeheartedly in Homer the way Schliemann did, but did believe such writings were a perspective on real happenings.

Meanwhile, Carl was taking a close look at Elizabeth, and he was smitten. He proposed marriage. Elizabeth first accepted and then reneged, partly perhaps because she did have an offer of an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but mostly because of Ida. They had been partners for some time and the thought of abandoning her was crushing, although Ida had given her blessing and was prepared to step aside.

It was Carl who came up with the cunning plan: Bert would marry Ida, Elizabeth would marry him, and all four create a ‘pro par’ (professional partnership) relationship that would offer a great deal of freedom to the women to enjoy their time and travels together and yet would allow them to work well as a functioning team. The Athenian Quartet was formed.

The Rest

It proved to have been a brilliant idea and did not offend the mores of the time. In that most collaborative and fascinating of sciences, here were four kindred spirits who could work together, discuss archaeology together, help each other in their endeavours and, all the while, be in touch with and in the thick of the latest archaeological discoveries in Greece.

It did turn out to be ‘dream team’. If there were bumps along the way, the final result was a smooth running collaboration. Eliazabeth and Ida were in a position to catalogue, examine, and even excavate the myriad pottery finds of Carl’s excavation in Prosymna and later Troy and finally at Nestor’s palace in Pylos. Ida helped Bert by cataloguing the terra cottas from the Corinth excavations and encouraging the one member of the team who was not adept at publishing to finish the papers on his long Corinth excavations which he had not managed to do by 1924. (5)

This procrastination would eventually cause him to be removed as director of the ASCSA. But Carl would continue under the aegis of the University of Cinninati and Bert under the University of Pennsylvania in Cyprus and the connection with the ASCSA would never be severed because Carl would often work in association the School and Elizabeth had bought a house at 9 Ploutarchou Street in Kolonaki, close to the ASCSA. (6) Their home became a centre for archaeologists of every nationality to meet and a spot where every American diplomat sent to Athens would have been delighted to be invited for a meal and interesting conversation.

It is interesting to note that no member of the pro pars seemed to have been diminished by the other’s accomplishments. Ida continued to write and publish until she died in 1954 while on board a ship returning her and Elizabeth to Greece. Bert did eventually publish his Corinth findings and proved helpful to other archaeologists following in his footsteps while also excavating in Cyprus. If Carl was the star it was because of his excavations and observations in Korakou, Prosymna, Troy, and finally Pylos. Elizabeth helped in every instance.

Nor was she merely an acolyte. From 1925 to 1952, Elizabeth wrote A Newsletter from Greece, articles which were published in the American Journal of Archaeology with analyses and tidbits of information that would have been of interests to professionals in the field as well as to the public at large. She was well placed to offer news and insights. One 1946 article that can be found on line was entitled News Items from Athens in which she describes the state of Athenian museums after the war, how the statues in the National Archaeological Museum were buried under the floor during the war, and how they fared once retrieved:

We also learn that the Mycenaean gold was placed in the vaults of the Bank of Greece during the war and that many statues of the Acropolis museum were cemented into surrounding caves for the duration.

I know I would have been one of the people awaiting her next article!

Apparently Elizabeth was also always ready to help a fellow archaeologist research an item in a Greek museum. Her help on the spot must have been invaluable.

Elizabeth, as did Carl, Bert, and Ida, took part in the life of Athens. She served as an officer of The American Women’s Association of Greece, and the Hellenic American Women’s club, and was a member of the American Association of University women, the American Historical Association and the Archaeological Institute of America.

Elizabeth suffered a debilitating stroke in 1956 that left her in a wheelchair. Undaunted, she continued to assist Carl at Pylos.

She died in September 21, 1966 and is buried in the Protestant section of the First cemetery of Athens.

The Blegens’ headstone is one of the most beautiful in the cemetery and one of the most apt.

The Grave

Row thirteen in the Protestant Section of the First Cemetery

The Map

Footnotes

(1) Colin Dexter

(2). The professed aim of this gallery for the women attending Vassar was: to promote national identity and individual morality while fostering the ability to make informed visual distinctions and acquire the cultivated taste that young women could pass on to their children and communities. See https://www,vassar.edu/art/history.

(3) Linear B script had not been deciphered and would not be until 1952. Even then, although it provided fascinating insights like the fact that that the Mycenaeans called their animals names like Dapple or Blossom, it was not adequate for an historical narrative.

(4) Her paper was published in the American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1924) and can be read online.

(5) Bert’s Corinth papers were finally published in 1964, well after his death.

(6) Elizabeth left the house to the ASCSA in the event of all of their deaths.

9 Ploutarchou Street is today the seat of the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation which promotes Greek Culture and Arts within and outside of Greece

Sources

nataliavogeikoff.com From the Archivist's Notebook

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/bios/Blegen_Elizabeth%20Pierce.pdf

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/499458?journalCode=aja

https://www.jstor.org/stable/499458

Πέμπτη 29 Ιανουαρίου 2026

Carl William Blegen, Archaeologist

Carl William Blegen

Born June 27, 1887, Minnesota Died August 24, 1971, Athens

Row 13 up from the entrance to the Protestant Cemetery

American archaeologist Carl Blegen is perhaps best known in Greece for his discovery and excavation of the Mycenaean palace complex at Pylos on the southwest coast of the Peloponnese, still one of most evocative prehistoric sites in the country.

Carl at Pylos in 1961

The beginning of the twentieth century was a wonderful time to be an archaeologist. New sites were being excavated; old sites were being revisited in a more comprehensive and scholarly manner. The odds of finding some wonderful new grave, temple, or artefact were high. There were already enough pottery shards and building foundations excavated to be able to compare sites with one another and begin to accurately date the settlements of those mysterious prehistoric Bronze Age people, the last of whom we now call Mycenaeans. In this latter endeavour, Carl was one of the pioneers. He managed to make the story of the prehistoric inhabitants of Greece come alive to a public which previously had focused only on the classical period.

Blegen’s love of Greece, ancient and modern, was a constant thread running through the fabric of his long life. His career began with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, continued under the aegis of the University of Cincinnati, and encompassed two world wars. In that most collaborative of sciences, he had help: fellow archaeologists from Greece and other countries, his own American team, and closer to home, his wife, her lover Ida Thallon, and her husband Bert Hodge Hill. The Athenian Quartet (Carl’s term) chose to live out their lives in Athens at 9 Ploutarchou Street in Athens’ Kolonaki. Elizabeth, Ida, and Bert were an ‘in house’ dream team that, with their unfailing support, helped propel him to lasting fame.

Carl in 1937

Asked how to pronounce his name, Blegen told The Literary Digest: "Seeking the pagan is Doctor Blegen (blay'gen).

His Life:

Carl was born in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1887, one of the six children of Norwegian immigrants. His father was a professor of Greek, a fact that must have had a strong influence on his life choices. Two years before he entered the University of Minnesota, he lost part of his arm and right hand in a hunting accident – a traumatic loss for a 15 year old. He entered Yale in 1907 and there earned his Master’s degree in classical archaeology. The years 1910 to 1913 would see him as a student and then a fellow at the American School of Classical studies at Athens where he was given the opportunity to excavate Locris and Corinth, and time to travel in Europe.

Carl was organized by nature and proved to be a great help to Bert Hodge Hill, the director of the School, when he became the secretary of the ASCSA from 1913 until 1916. He and Bert, 13 years his senior were a good team. Bert believed in the importance of site stratification and meticulous note taking and Carl was an apt pupil. It was in 1915 that Carl began his important work at the prehistoric site of Korakou in Corinthia. When the First World War intervened neither he nor Bert left the country. Carl served with the American Red Cross in Macedonia and Bulgaria and was decorated for his service by the Greek state.

Korakou

Korakou is by the sea between modern Corinth and the ancient port of Lechaion. Recently the Institute for Aegean History, bought the site (see its outline above) before it was entirely overrun by modern Corinth’s urban sprawl.

The site is small and uninteresting to anyone but an archaeologist. The fact that it had been abandoned before 800 B.C.E. is what made it so important to Carl. If not exactly a tabula rasa, at least its layers of prehistoric settlements were untouched by later inhabitants. By careful excavation and examining ceramics, Carl and fellow excavator Alan Wace (director of the British School in Athens), were able to comprehend the site - and rough dates began to emerge: Early Helladic 2500-2000, Middle Helladic I, 2000-1750, Middle Helladic II 1750-1600, Late Helladic I: 1600-1500, Late Helladic II: 1500 -1400, and Late Helladic III, 1400-1100. Finally there was a workable chronological history for the Bronze Age people who had colonized Greece. Like every good scientist, Carl saw the dating as providing a road map – not as the final word.

His meticulous work at Korakou provided Carl with material for his PhD thesis, which became an excellent book in 1921. It can be read online today. (1) His 1921, analysis of Korakou and his careful documentation were a preview of excellence to come.

Who Were These People?

No archaeologist with the imagination of someone like Carl would resist speculation about the prehistoric people whose remnants he was uncovering. In his view, they had close ties to mainland Greece. He saw ancient Greeks as a cultural amalgam – an alloy - if you like - with each successive layer of newcomers, whether by invasion or assimilation, adding to the mix. The Early Helladic culture had ended in fire, been taken over by a ‘more vigorous and powerful group’, again from the north, and by the Late Helladic period their heirs were greatly influenced by the Minoan culture from Crete and willing to modify their own culture and adopt some of the cultural aspects of these sophisticated southerners.

Voila: Mycenaeans!

This theory of vigorous northerners was opposed by Sir Arthur Evans who believed Mycenaeans were dominated by Minoan Crete. Evans called Carl’s theory a “Helladic heresy” and contemptuously referred to Wace and Blegen as “those barbarians”. Passions run high when people undertake to uncover their own cultural past!

If Carl’s idea of Greek prehistory falls into the category of generally accepted knowledge today, it is because of these early excavations and his conclusions. His theory was proved by the discovery in 1952 that the Linear B tablets found at Knossos, Pylos and other sites were an early form of the Greek language and that, therefore, his Helladic people were early Greeks.

In 1920 with his PhD under his belt, Carl became the assistant director of ASCSA from 1920 to 1926 with Bert Hill as his director. During this period he would excavate at Zygouries, Phlius, Hymettos, and Prosymna, the settlement surrounding the Argive Heraion between Argos and Mycenae.

Carl and Bert in 1915

Carl, Elizabeth Pierce, and Marriage

Carl had had one disappointment in love in 1912-13 when, as a young man of 23, his suit was rejected by Catherine Munro Shurman, the daughter of the President of Cornell University and a United States Minister to Greece. He fell in love again 10 years later in 1922-3 school year when he met his contemporary Elizabeth “Libbie” Pierce, a fine arts teacher at Vassar, who had enrolled as a student at the ASCSA.

Elizabeth

She reciprocated but then ended their engagement because she did not feel she could abandon her long time companion Ida Thallon.

Ida and Elizabeth in 1920

Carl’s solution was elegant: for Ida to marry his friend, Bert Hodge Hill, and for Elizabeth to marry him and then the four of them could live together as a quartet. It was a solution that suited each of them - and society at large – which might speculate, but could enjoy the company and thoughts of the two couples in perfect harmony with the mores of the time. Elizabeth became a tremendous help to Carl, as did Ida and Bert. (2)

Prosymna (1925, 1927, and 1928) and a Possible Hero Cult

Prosymna

Today Prosymna is a somewhat out of the way spot close to the ruins of the Argive Heraion (7^th to 5^th century BC), and a great place to contemplate the remnants of a network of ancient roads that once joined the Mycenaean sites in the Argolid together. The chance to excavate and evaluate the prehistoric graves of Prosymna got Carl theorizing once more. There was no Mycenaean palace, but there were cyclopean walls. Carl would excavate 53 Late Helladic tombs on the site. Because he saw from various artifacts that many of these tombs had been visited in geometric times, he came up with the idea that a later ‘hero cult’ must have had been established there.

That the Greeks establishing cities in the historical period were obsessed with their Mycenaean past is evidenced by their drama and the ‘founding’ myths of each new city which all harkened back to that era. So it seemed Carl was speculating on firm ground.

But you have to be careful. Carla Antoniccio in her much later article in Hesperia (the ASCSA periodical) suggests that it is more likely that the prehistoric graves were simply being reused in the Geometric age and that the cyclopean walls were, in fact, from the geometric period – something Carl himself had suggested because of the pottery found tucked in the wall’s interstices. But why would the latter people from Argos have built a cyclopean wall?

She wonders if Dorian Argos was a little short of a suitable Homeric past to hang their city myth on, and had built a ‘faux’ cyclopean wall to give their new temple of Hera (Argos’ patron goddess) a suitably ancient back story!

1926 to 1938

Bert’s dismissal from the ASCSA for failing to publish his Corinth results caused the Quartet to reassess and partially sever their connection with the School although not entirely, and certainly not their connection with their many friends both there and in the wider foreign community of Athens. In fact, Carl stayed on as acting ASCSA Director during the 1926 -1927 year but he then joined the University of Cincinnati as professor of Classical archaeology with the proviso that he could be involved in field work.

Carl in 1929

It was under their aegis that Carl and his team (3) began detailed excavations in Troy, excavations which would continue until 1938.

It was big news in Cinninnati

(The Sunday Enquirer, February 14, 1932)

Troy

An aerial view of Troy today

Troy had been tentatively (and correctly) identified by Homer lover Frank Calvert. It was part of his family’s farm. He began excavating in 1867 before turning it over in 1871 to another believer, Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann was hunting for Homer’s Troy and to find it cut a huge trench down through the ruins and declared that the level in which he had found a huge treasure cache, was the Troy of legend.

Sophia Schliemann wearing part of what Schliemann called “Priam’s Treasure”

Carl’s excavation in 1932 employed a much more refined and systematic approach to the dig, using the most modern methods available at the time, including video records. He established a solid ceramic chronology for the site and linked level V11a (which had been destroyed by fire) to Homer’s Trojan war (1180 B.C.E.). Schliemann had mistakenly identified a strata more than 1000 years prior to the war.

No archaeologist ever works alone. Carl was in Illustrious company in this 1939 photo. Left to right: Carl, Konstantinos Kourouniotis, Spiridon Marinatos, Bert Hill, Alan Wace,and Georgo Karo.

1939 and Pylos

Messenia is full of Mycenaean sites but no one was sure of the exact location of the Homer’s palace of Nestor at ‘sandy’ Pylos. Schliemann had given it a try – with no luck. It was Konstantinos Kourouniotis, director of the Athens Archaeological Museum and Member of the Greek Academy who championed the site at Ano Eglianos located about 9 kilometres northeast of Navarino Bay and who obtained the necessary permissions for Carl to begin his excavations in 1939. In that year, the palace yielded many of those mysterious Linear B tablets baked by accident when the palace was destroyed by fire. These tablets had been ‘written’ sometime at the end of the 12^th century BC. When Michael Ventris was able to decode it in 1952, it proved to be an early form of the Greek language.

It was a syllabic language like Japanese – good for a list but maybe not for a poem

The rest of the vast Palace complex and the surrounding tombs would have to wait until well after the Second World War during which Carl and Elizabeth and Ida left for the United States. Carl had joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington D.C, and, upon his return to Greece in 1945-6, the U.S. Department of State in Athens. He again became director of the ASCSA in 1948-9 and Head of the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati in 1950, a post he would hold until he retired in 1957.

A site plan of the vast palace

The view from the palace

The Pylos palace complex ruled over an area of about 2,000 square kilometres and a population of between 50 and 80 thousand. It was Carl who identified it as Nestor’s palace and he was proven correct when a tablet with Pylos (pu ro) written in Linear B was found. (In Linear B, the l and r sound were the same).

Pu on the bottom left and Ro 4^th on the right

Nestor’s palace and Linear B were big news and Carl kept the public interested by holding weekly open houses on site for visitors and reporters. This site is a must see for any visitor to Greece as is the fabulous Museum at nearby Chora.

The Rest

Kudos followed: An honorary degree from Oxford, Cincinnati, the University of Athens, a Gold Medal from the Archaeological Institute of America, and more.

Carl was the last of the Quartet to die. He died On August 24, 1974 and was buried in the Protestant Section of the First cemetery of Athens. Ida had died in 1954, Bert in 1958, and Elizabeth in 1966. Each member of the Quartet is so interesting and contributed so much, that each deserves and will get a separate entry.

Afterword

No short text can do a man like Carl Blegen justice. He was, by all accounts, complex, driven, and ambitious to prove his theories correct. How could it be otherwise?

In a forward to his recent book on Pylos, archaeologist Jack Davis called Carl Blegen ‘old school’. By that he meant that the tools available to an archaeologist today – carbon dating, extensive surface surveys (on foot or by remote sensing devices) and, of course, much more cumulative data allows more accuracy. On the other hand, Carl lived in an era of archaeological exploration that allowed, invited even, glorious speculation. If some of his theories were based on cultural prejudices (how could they not be?), more of it was inspired by painstaking methodology, sheer doggedness, inspired imaginative leaps, and just plain love of the hunt! Few archaeologists since have had the same impact on the study of prehistoric Greece as Carl Blegen.

There is a recent book about Carl Blegen called Carl W Blegen, Personal and Archaeological Narratives edited by Natalia Voegelkoff-Brogan, Jack Davis, and Vasiliki Florou put out by Lockwood Press which is well worth seeking out.

His Grave

The Map

Footnotes

(1) https://archive.org/details/korakouaprehisto00bleg

(2) Natalia Brogan the ASCSA’s archivist and expert on all things Hill and Blegen tells one interesting story about the marriage. Elizabeth and Carl married in Lake Placed New York in 1924. Not only did he not invite his family, he did not even inform his mother with whom he was close. He never introduced Elizabeth to his family. It seems odd, particularly because he did share his woes when he had been rejected by Catherine Munro Shurman 10 years earlier. It is suggestive but I am not sure of what. Was it his Lutheran background?

He did attend the wedding of Bert and Ida and wrote: Bert saying, It certainly is the finest possible solution of the whole problem, best in every way for everybody … and we are going to have a wonderful time together when our Quartet reassembles in Athens.

(3) Carl’s partners in this endeavour were American archaeologists Marion Rawson and John Caskey.

Sources