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.