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Archaeologist · Museum director · Excavator · Cataloguer

Valerios Stais

1857–1923 · Greece

Director of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens whose museum gave Georges Nicole "grandes facilités" to classify its Cypriot vases in 1903-04.

Biography

Georges Nicole thanked Valerios Stais, director of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, for the facilities he gave him to study the museum's Cypriot vases. Nicole's Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes (1906) records that a weaker part of the collection had been classed earlier by Myres, that he finished the classification in the winter of 1903-04, and that he thanked "M. Staïs, le directeur du Musée, qui a bien voulu m'accorder de grandes facilités"1.

Stais was born on Kythira in 1857. He studied medicine, took a doctorate at Halle in 1885 and joined the National Museum in 18872. Wikidata gives his directorship as 1890 to 19233. He excavated at Thorikos in 1888 and at Spata, Aegina and Aphidna2. His 1915 catalogue of the museum's Mycenaean collection is cited for two probable Cypriot imports from Mycenae5. He is not recorded as having worked in Cyprus. He died in 19232.

Life and work

  1. 1885
    Doctorate at the University of Halle, after first studying medicine.

    HalleValerios Stais, Wikipedia

  2. 1893
    Ephor of Antiquities who in 1893 surveyed Attica, became interested in Perati and excavated some tombs there.

    Dora Vassilikou; Colin MacDonald; Doniert Evely (2026). Mycenaean Civilization. p. 555.

  3. 1903–1904
    As Director of the Athens museum, gave Georges Nicole 'de grandes facilités' for classifying its Cypriot vase collection, a part of which had earlier been classed by Myres.

    AthensGeorges Nicole (1906). Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes

  4. Undated
    Valerios Stais donated a collection of sherds that formed part of the nucleus of Swedish public collections.

    Esther Solomon, 2021, Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus, p. 85

Connections

1 person

Colleagues & contacts

Mentioned in

5 mentions

Institutions · 1

  • National Archaeological Museum, Athens

    1906

    Georges Nicole's Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes, classified in the winter of 1903-04 with the facilities given by the Director, Valerios…

    Nicole 1906

Sources

  1. 1.Georges Nicole (1906). Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes.
  2. 2.“Valerios Stais, Wikipedia”. Online
  3. 3.Valerios Stais, Wikidata Q1381149 / GND 12212233X. Online
  4. 4.Arthur Evans (1912). The Mycenaean Age.
  5. 5.Valerios Stais (1915). Catalogue of the Mycenaean Collection of the National Museum, Athens, vol. II.
  6. 6.Esther Solomon, 2021, Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus.
  7. 7.Dora Vassilikou; Colin MacDonald; Doniert Evely (2026). Mycenaean Civilization. p. 555..
  8. 8.Georges Nicole, 1906, Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes, leaves 10, 11.
  9. 9.Georges Nicole, Catalogue de vases cypriotes du Musée d'Athènes (1906).

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