Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Scholar · Cataloguer

Lena Söderhjelm

fl. 1950–1994 · Sweden

Swedish scholar who catalogued the non-pottery finds of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age for her 1967 Lund doctorate and for volume IV:1D of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition.

Biography

Lena Åström catalogued the Late Cypriote objects that are not pots: gold, silver, figurines, beads, faience, glass, stone, bone, ivory and metalwork. She published under that name in 1967 and 1972 and as Lena Söderhjelm in 19941.

She came to Lund in the early 1950s and heard the lectures of Einar Gjerstad, who proposed the Late Cypriote gold and silver as a licentiate subject. It grew into a doctoral thesis on all the non-pottery material of the period1. She worked in the Cyprus Museum in the summers of 1959 and 1960, and in the British Museum, Philadelphia, the storerooms of the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm, and museums in Cairo, Amman, Latakia, Beirut and Jerusalem. Most of her drawings were made by Bror Millberg, the draughtsman of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition1. She travelled with her then husband, who was writing the Late Cypriote pottery for the same expedition volume1; Lorna Powell calls her the wife of Paul Åström7.

The thesis, Studies on the Arts and Crafts of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age, was defended at Lund on 18 May 1967, with Porphyrios Dikaios as opponent1. Her material appeared in 1972 in The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, volume IV, part 1D, with Paul Åström as co-author3. H. W. Catling later judged that she gave no good account of the pins5. When she wrote her 1994 recollection she was working at the Library of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm1.

Life and work

  1. 1950s
    Began classical studies at Lund in the early fifties, attending Gjerstad's lectures (then on early Rome) and a study tour to the Medelhavsmuseet, where Gjerstad's former foreman Toulis (surname Souidos, 'the Swede') taught the students to mend sherds.

    Lund; StockholmSöderhjelm 1994, p. 59

  2. 1950s – 1960
    After an undergraduate paper on Mycenaean chariot vases, Gjerstad suggested she take the gold and silver objects of the Late Cypriote period (1600-1050 BC) from the SCE material for a licentiate; the work grew into a doctoral thesis covering all LC non-pottery finds (terracotta figurines, beads, spindle-whorls, faience, glass, stone, bone, ivory, metals other than the bronzework already treated by Catling 1964).

    LundSöderhjelm 1994, p. 59

  3. 1959–1960
    Studied the Cypriote material in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia, in the summers of 1959 and 1960 (present at the proclamation of the Republic, August 1960); also worked in the British Museum, the University Museum Philadelphia (Kourion Bamboula material), the Medelhavsmuseet storerooms in Stockholm (December), and museums in Cairo, Amman, Latakia, Beirut and Jerusalem. She travelled for this with her 'then husband', who was working on the LC pottery for the same SCE volume.

    NicosiaSöderhjelm 1994, p. 60

  4. 18 May 1967
    Defended her thesis Studies on the Arts and Crafts of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age (Lund, 1967) at Lund with P. Dikaios, Director of Antiquities of Cyprus (described as 'late' in 1994), as faculty opponent.

    LundSöderhjelm 1994, p. 62

  5. 1994
    Wrote the retrospective 'Doing Thesis Work for the Expedition: A Review of the Cypriote Period of my Life' in E. Rystedt (ed.), The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: The Living Past (signed Lena Söderhjelm, Library of the Swedish Parliament).

    StockholmSöderhjelm 1994, pp. 59-62

Connections

10 people
Paul ÅströmEinar Nilson GjerstadV. E. G. KennaMervyn PophamIngrid WrannertElisabeth ÅströmPorphyrios DikaiosHector CatlingEleanor StewartBror MillbergLena Söderhjelm
FamilyScholarshipColleagues

Family

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Sources

  1. 1.Lena Söderhjelm (1994). “Doing Thesis Work for the Expedition: A Review of the Cypriote Period of my Life”. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: The Living Past, 59-62. Stockholm, Medelhavsmuseet. Online
  2. 2.Lena Åström (1967). Studies on the Arts and Crafts of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age. Lund.
  3. 3.P. Åström, L. Åström (1972). The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, Vol. IV, Part 1D: The Late Cypriote Bronze Age. Other Arts and Crafts. Relative and Absolute Chronology, Foreign Relations, Historical Conclusions. Lund.
  4. 4.V. Karageorghis (2003). Ancient Cypriote Art in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Athens, Kapon Editions, for the A. G. Leventis Foundation.
  5. 5.H. W. Catling (2020). Kouklia: Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Tombs at Palaepaphos 1951-1954. Oxford, BAR Publishing.
  6. 6.Boldizsár Csornay-Caprez (2000). Cypriote Antiquities. Rome, L'Erma di Bretschneider.
  7. 7.Judy Powell (2013). Love's Obsession: The Lives and Archaeology of Jim and Eve Stewart. Kent Town, South Australia, Wakefield Press.