Jennifer M. Webb

Webb studied Classics and Ancient History at the University of Melbourne and completed a PhD on the archaeology of ritual in Late Bronze Age Cyprus in 1988²⁸. According to Wikipedia, she was born in Melbourne in 1953²⁹. Wikipedia also says that she was appointed at the University of Adelaide in 1982 to coordinate the Greek History course and resigned after four years to return to Melbourne and start a family²⁹. The same article, alone, has her joining La Trobe University in 1998 as an Australian Research Council Fellow and becoming a Senior Research Associate in 2003²⁹.

Around 2012 she was a Charles La Trobe Research Fellow in the Archaeology Program at La Trobe, and the author or co-author of 13 books²⁸. By 2021 she was Adjunct Professor at La Trobe and Senior Research Associate at the University of Cyprus³⁰. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Society of Antiquaries of London²⁸. Wikipedia alone dates the Academy fellowship, with a Centenary Medal, to 2001²⁹. In the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to education, particularly to archaeology"^30,31.

Her early work was with Vassos Karageorghis at Kition: she co-wrote with him the report on the 1975 excavations, and with him and Stella Lubsen-Admiraal the report on 1976 and 1977, both in the Journal of Field Archaeology³². She wrote an appendix on a scapula from Limassol-Komissariato for a Karageorghis volume of 1977, and "The incised scapulae" for Excavations at Kition V in 1985³³. Joanna Smith later wrote that Webb's study "argued strongly" that the Kition scapulae served oracular activities, and that she showed they would have been used in apyromatic scapulamancy³⁴.

Her thesis, revised, appeared in 1999 as Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age³⁵. The book sorts Late Cypriot cult sites into the almost certainly cultic, the less reliably cultic and the misidentified, and places public ritual in the courtyards beside the cult buildings³⁵. D. J. I. Begg's review was mixed: he called it "a substantial work, though not well served by its presentation", the catalogue "a most useful reference work", and her method right to start from the Cypriot material alone³⁵. He objected that her criteria left no certain domestic cult areas and many elite sanctuaries, and found her identifications of deities "not necessarily persuasive", while crediting her rejection of diffusionist theories³⁵.

The Marki work was done with David Frankel³⁸. A preliminary survey of the area was made in 1990, and Webb's own early article says the first season, "under the direction of Dr David Frankel", took place in late 1991³⁶. The yearly chronicles of excavation in Cyprus name Frankel and Webb together as directors from that first season, mid-November 1991 to mid-January 1992³⁷. Winter seasons followed in 1992-93 and 1993-94, when a further 267 m² were dug^38,39. The chronicle for 1995 reports a fourth season, with 21 Australian students under Frankel and Webb of La Trobe⁴⁰. Work went on in 1995-96 and 1996-97^41,42. A season announced as the last, reported for 1999, explored about 1,000 m², doubling the area uncovered⁴³. A seventh season followed in 1999-2000, and digging ended after an eighth, reported for 2001; that chronicle calls Marki the only settlement of its period excavated completely^44,45.

The final reports appeared in 1996, covering "Excavations 1990–1994", and 2006, covering "Excavations 1995–2000", with a book for general readers, Marki. Life and Work in a Prehistoric Bronze Age Village, in 2008¹. Webb set out to record the pottery so that contexts could be compared with each other and with other settlements³⁶. In 2023 she wrote that Marki grew slowly, "never beyond 300 or 400 persons", and that its people "may not have known they were on an island"⁴⁶.

In 1999 Webb and Frankel published "Characterizing the Philia Facies" in the American Journal of Archaeology²¹. Their model began with "an initial intrusion into Cyprus of autonomous groups from Anatolia", followed by a distinct Philia cultural system and the acculturation of migrants and natives alike²¹. Priscilla Keswani summarised it as placing the immigrants' origin chiefly in south-western Anatolia⁴⁷. Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou wrote that A. Bernard Knapp's views later moved toward theirs, and that Edgar Peltenburg and Diane Bolger proposed a model lying between migration and internal development⁴⁸. One critic objects that Webb and Frankel overlook stratigraphic evidence at Kissonerga in calling some pendants "Philia type"⁴⁹.

With Frankel she published The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Deneia in Cyprus in 2007, which Louise Steel counts among the significant progress in recording the looted cemeteries of the interior^50,51. Webb argues that the Deneia pottery's forms and motifs were "active symbols", and suggests the site's local ceramic signature "may have served to integrate recently nucleated groups"^46,50. At Politiko-Kokkinorotsos, occupied around 2880-2670 cal BC, the 2007 excavations cleared about 550 m², and the team read the site as a seasonal hunting site²⁸.

The 2011 volume Psematismenos-Trelloukkas, with Giorgos Georgiou of the Department of Antiquities, was praised by Robert Merrillees as an "exhaustive study" from a "highly productive and successful joint venture"⁵². He also wrote that "the opportunity was therefore missed to explore all the discoveries made prior to 1982"⁵².

From early 2008 Webb and Frankel revised and completed the publication of the Karmi cemeteries dug in 1961 by James Stewart, which appeared in 2009^1,53. She also co-edited J.R.B. Stewart: An Archaeological Legacy in 2013⁵⁴. The 1942 excavation by Porphyrios Dikaios at Ambelikou-Aletri came to them from Merrillees and Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi; their 2013 volume identifies Area 2 as a pottery workshop and Unit II as a kiln⁵⁵. In 2018 her Lapithos Vrysi tou Barba published tombs dug by Menelaos Markides, using his 1917 field notes and finds located in the Cyprus Museum in 2016 and 2017⁹. Her Petrie Oration, given on 26 March 2021, took copper trade in the Middle Bronze Age as seen from Lapithos³⁰.

On the death of Paul Åström, editing his series Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology passed to Frankel and Webb⁵⁶. In 2014 she edited a volume in Frankel's honour, and he wrote that "much of whatever contribution I have made to Cypriot archaeology is the result of a long collaboration"¹.