Curator · Museum director · Scholar
E. J. Forsdyke
fl. 1925–1937 · United Kingdom
British curator and museum director, active 1925–1937.
Life and work
- 1925Author of the British Museum Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases, vol. I part I, Prehistoric Aegean Pottery (London); cited in the Cypriot Aegean-type pottery literature for items found in Cyprus and Calymnos.
- 9 November 1935Wrote a confidential letter to J. D. Beazley after the dismissal of Hilton as Director of Antiquities became known: he doubted Hilton could have been so bad, hoped he would accept an extension of his probation, said Megaw must not leave Athens for a post he might lose within a year, and that Radford (Office of Works) or Megaw would be Hilton's successor. He recounted a Cypriot who offered to smuggle tomb jewellery out if Forsdyke would buy it, saying the Museum would otherwise confiscate and sell it; called the Museum's sale of 'duplicates' 'notorious', dangerous and in need of strict control; and said he had just stopped Myres doing something at the Archaeological Joint Committee.
LondonStanley-Price 2025
- 1937Visited the Khirokitia excavations with Sir George Hill and gave 'many useful comments' (Dikaios's preface thanks 'Sir John Forsdyke').
KhirokitiaDikaios 1953
Connections
3 peopleScholarship
- Corresponded with John Davidson Beazley1935
Colleagues & contacts
- Preceded George Hill1936
- Met Porphyrios Dikaios1937
On Ancient Cyprus
1 page- Mycenaean Imports and Local ImitationsCompendium
Sources
- 1.Nicholas Stanley-Price (2025). “Illicit excavation and the sale of 'duplicate' antiquities: Rupert Gunnis and the Cyprus Museum, 1926-1932”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 55, 269-301. Online
- 2.P. Dikaios (1953). Khirokitia: Final Report on the Excavation of a Neolithic Settlement in Cyprus on Behalf of the Department of Antiquities, 1936-1946. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- 3.E. J. Forsdyke (1925). Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, vol. I, part I: Prehistoric Aegean Pottery. London.
- 4.J. L. Benson (1972). Bamboula at Kourion: The Necropolis and the Finds Excavated by J. F. Daniel. Philadelphia, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.
- 5.N. Robertson (ed.) (1975). The Archaeology of Cyprus: Recent Developments. Park Ridge, N.J., Noyes Press.