Word: hanfmann
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sardis stood. The whole Sardis region, 45 miles inland from Turkey's modern Izmir, is cluttered with Greek, Roman and Christian ruins. When diggers explored this relatively common stuff they did not find Lydian Sardis under it. This summer, a joint Harvard-Cornell expedition led by Professor George Hanfmann of Harvard, made another effort. Last week came the announcement that the site of Lydian Sardis has finally been found...
...ruins of a luxurious Roman house that seems to have been the mansion of a rich Christian bishop. Under its floor was what they were seeking: a large mass of broken pottery of Lydian manufacture. Nothing like it had ever been found in the Sardis region, so Professor Hanfmann is reasonably sure that he has found the deeply buried site of the Lydian city...
When World War II interrupted his scholarship, Professor Hanfmann was in the office of War Information. "My job was to control our dear writers to see that they didn't all go off in different directions. In London, I was chief of the German Language Section, and it was interesting work. We had to plan radio shows for broadcast to the Germans. Our Prisoner of War shows had a certain effect, I think, near the end when things were going badly for them...
...partner in the present effort is Professor Detweiler of Cornell. "There are two essential people in an excavation" says Professor Hanfmann, "an archeologist and an architect. Detweiler is both...
Professors Hanfmann and Detweiler are financing the work with funds from Harvard and Cornell, matching a contribution from the Bolingen Foundation. Excavation could go on indefinitely, however. "As long as you dig you can always use more money," Professor Hanfmann says. At Sardis, he hopes to find clues to the Lydian language, which still baffles philologists. "We have a few samples now, but most of them read: 'This is the tomb of so and so, whosoever violates it will have to pay a fine'--Well, you can't get very far that way." He also plans to find archeological evidence...