Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Scholar

Campbell Cowan Edgar

1870–1938 · United Kingdom

Scottish archaeologist who wrote the pottery chapter of the Phylakopi report, identified Cypriot imports on Melos, and later served in the Egyptian antiquities service.

Biography

Campbell Cowan Edgar picked out Cypriot pottery among the finds on Melos and a Cypriot sculptor's hand in a statue at Cairo. He was born at Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire, on 26 December 1870, studied at Glasgow and at Oriel College, Oxford, and was Craven Fellow at the British School at Athens in 18961.

For the British School's report on Phylakopi, also on Melos, he wrote the chapter on the pottery. In it he compared a relief motif with Cypriot base-ring ware and said that fragments of a painted bowl in white clay had been imported from Cyprus6.

In 1900 he was appointed to the Cairo Museum's catalogue; he became chief inspector of antiquities in the Delta in 1905 and was Keeper of the museum from 1925 to 19271. In the Cairo collection a painted stone female figure with a dove under the skirt, found in a canal near Zagazig, had been thought by Maspero to be Latin work of the 13th or 14th century, perhaps from Cyprus. Maspero deferred to Edgar, who judged it an archaistic Aphrodite of the fourth century BC or later by a Cypriot sculptor7. He died at Berkhamsted on 10 May 19381.

Life and work

  1. 1900
    Presented to the British Museum three Island gems and one Minoan seal, all said to come from Trypiti on Melos

    Melos (findspot)C. Gallou; M. Georgiadis; G. M. Muskett (2008). Dioskouroi: Studies presented to W.G. Cavanagh and C.B. Mee, p. 98

  2. 1902
    A jar from the Pelos cemetery was presented to the Fitzwilliam Museum; the page names Edgar as excavator but does not say he was the donor

    Cambridge(2012). From the Cam to the Cephissus: the Fitzwilliam Museum and students of the British School at Athens. Journal of the History of Collections

  3. 1904
    Wrote the pottery chapter of the Phylakopi report; it compares Phylakopi vases with Cypriot base-ring ware and Cypriot vase types, and identifies fragments of a white-clay painted bowl as imported from Cyprus

    MelosT. D. Atkinson and others (British School at Athens) (1904). Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper 4, pp. 100, 158-159, pp. 100

  4. from 1904
    Judged a painted stone female figure in the Cairo Museum (from a canal near Zagazig, with a dove under the skirt) an archaistic Aphrodite of the 4th century BC or later by a Cypriot sculptor; Maspero had thought it 13th-14th century Latin work, perhaps from Cyprus, and deferred to Edgar

    CairoG. Maspero (ed.) (1904). Le Musée égyptien: recueil de monuments et de notices sur les fouilles d'Égypte, tome 2. pp. 33-34, pp. 33-34

  5. 1918
    Gave an object ('figure') to the British Museum in 1918.

    British Museum collection online, 'figure'

Connections

2 people

Objects

Mentioned in

5 mentions

Sources

  1. 1.“Campbell Cowan Edgar”. Online
  2. 2.Susan Sherratt (2000). Catalogue of Cycladic Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum: The Captive Spirit. 204.
  3. 3. (1928). “The journal of Egyptian archaeology”. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
  4. 4.C. Gallou; M. Georgiadis; G. M. Muskett (2008). Dioskouroi: Studies presented to W.G. Cavanagh and C.B. Mee.
  5. 5.H. R. Hall (1901). The Oldest Civilization of Greece: Studies of the Mycenaean Age. 345.
  6. 6.T. D. Atkinson and others (British School at Athens) (1904). “Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos”. Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper 4, pp. 100, 158-159.
  7. 7.G. Maspero (ed.) (1904). Le Musée égyptien: recueil de monuments et de notices sur les fouilles d'Égypte, tome 2. pp. 33-34.
  8. 8. (2012). “From the Cam to the Cephissus: the Fitzwilliam Museum and students of the British School at Athens”. Journal of the History of Collections.
  9. 9.British Museum collection online, 'figure'.
  10. 10.1928, The journal of Egyptian archaeology, obituary notice.
  11. 11.Susan Sherratt, 2000, Catalogue of Cycladic Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum: The Captive Spirit.
  12. 12.The journal of Egyptian archaeology (1928).
  13. 13.Susan Sherratt, Catalogue of Cycladic Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum: The Captive Spirit (2000).

Corrections and additions

Did you know this person?

We would like to hear from relatives, colleagues and anyone who knows more about this person's life and work.

Missing from this record

  • No photograph

We would like to hear about

  • Dates and places of birth and death
  • Other spellings or names they used
  • Photographs, letters or papers
  • Their work, collections or excavations
  • A mistake in what we say
Write to us

or alexis@ancientcyprus.com

If this page is about you, write to us and we will correct it or take it down. Tell us if you would like to be thanked by name on the page.