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Adler, (Johann Heinrich) Friedrich  

(b Berlin, Oct 15, 1827; d Berlin, Sept 15, 1908).

German architect, archaeologist and writer. He was one of the leading figures of Berlin’s architectural establishment in the latter half of the 19th century. On completion of his studies in 1852, he was given the prestigious post of Bauleiter at the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by Friedrich August Stüler. He subsequently became a lecturer and in 1861 a professor of architectural history at the Bauakademie in Berlin. Many of his church buildings used medieval motifs and elements, for example the Christuskirche (1862–8) in Berlin and the Elisabethkirche (1869–72) in Wilhelmshafen. He followed Karl Bötticher in his attempts to merge medieval and classical elements, best illustrated in his design for the Thomaskirche (competition 1862; built 1865–70), Berlin. There, Adler used Gothic structural devices embellished with rich Renaissance detail, a tendency that was also present in many of the entries for the Berlin Cathedral competition (...

Article

Beulé, Ernest-Charles-Auguste  

Georges Roux

(b Saumur, June 29, 1826; d Paris, April 4, 1874).

French archaeologist and politician. In 1849 he was named a member of the Ecole Française d’Athènes, created three years earlier by Louis-Philippe, King of France. Beulé was an elegant and urbane man whose energy and curiosity led him towards active field research through travel and excavation. He explored Arcadia, Elis and Achaia in 1850, publishing his findings in 1855, and as early as 1852–3 undertook excavations on the west slope of the Acropolis at Athens that were to make him famous. Using ‘50 pounds of powder’ to blow up the Turkish defences that obstructed the space before the Propylaia, he uncovered the great Roman staircase and the Byzantine postern gate known as the ‘Beulé Gate’. Deceived by the high quality of the Classical marble reused in this late monument, he believed he had discovered the original entrance to the Acropolis built by Mnesikles or at least, on later reflection, ‘conforming to Mnesikles’ plans’. The repercussions of this discovery and the polemics they entailed brought fame to Beulé and ‘its first ray of glory’ to the Ecole d’Athènes, welcome at a time when its usefulness was being questioned in Paris. Beulé helped to ensure its survival and its transformation into an archaeological research institute. He carried out excavations at Byrsa in ...

Article

Donaldson, T(homas) L(everton)  

Jill Lever

(b London, Oct 17, 1795; d London, Aug 1, 1885).

English architect, archaeologist and teacher. He was the son of an architect, James Donaldson (c. 1756–1843), and great-nephew of Thomas Leverton. Trained in his father’s office and at the Royal Academy, London, Donaldson travelled in Italy, Greece and Asia Minor from 1818 to 1823 and on his return set up in practice. His first sizeable commission (won in competition) was for the church of the Holy Trinity, Brompton Road, London (1826–9), constructed in the non-archaeological Commissioners’ Gothic style, which was typical of those churches built as a result of the 1818 Act. Other works include the library (1848–9) of University College, Gower Street, London, in a classical style, and University Hall (1848–9; formerly Dr Williams’s Library), Gordon Square, London, in a Tudor Gothic style.

Donaldson’s principal achievements were not as an architect but in his other roles and in his wide range of publications. He was the leader of the ...

Article

Farmakovsky, Boris  

V. Ya. Petrukhin

(Vladimirovich)

(b Vyatka, Feb 12, 1870; d Pargolovo, Leningrad [now St Petersburg] province, July 29, 1928).

Russian archaeologist and art historian. He graduated from the historical philology department at Novorossiysk University in 1892 and then visited museums and studied the results of excavations in Greece, Italy, France and Turkey (1894–7). From 1896 to 1900 he was academic secretary of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Istanbul. From 1901 to 1918 he was a member of the Archaeological Commission in St Petersburg (Petrograd from 1914) and academic secretary of the Russian Archaeological Society (1906–19). He became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1914 and a professor at Petrograd University in 1919. In 1921 he was appointed academic secretary of the State Academy for the History of Material Culture and curator of the State Hermitage Museum in 1924. He began independent excavations of the necropolis at Ol’viya and on Berezan’ Island in 1896 and followed this with a systematic study of Ol’viya in ...

Article

Furtwängler, (Johann) Adolf  

Thomas Braun

(Michael)

(b Freiburg im Breisgau, June 30, 1854; d Athens, Oct 10, 1907).

German archaeologist. His pioneering work transformed the study of Greek art from dependence on literary sources into a discipline based on a comprehensive knowledge of artefacts. Furtwängler was descended from a Black Forest family of peasants, wood-carvers and clockmakers; he attended Freiburg school, where his father was headmaster, studied Classics at Freiburg and Leipzig, and Classical archaeology under Heinrich Brunn (1822–94), the first professor of the subject at Munich. At the newly established Deutsches Archäologisches Institut at Rome (1877–8), he acquired mastery of the vast quantity of Greco-Roman sculpture in Italian collections. In Greece (1878–9) he studied original Greek artefacts, plentifully unearthed in recent excavations. He and Georg Loeschke (1852–1915) classified and published the pottery excavated by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae. Furtwängler’s work on 14,150 small bronzes from Olympia culminated in his authoritative fourth volume of the German excavation reports (1890...

Article

Osman Hamdi  

S. J. Vernoit

[Edhem, Osman HamdiHamdi Bey]

(b Istanbul, Dec 30, 1842; d Eskihisar, Gebze, nr Istanbul, Feb 24, 1910).

Turkish painter, museum director and archaeologist. In 1857 he was sent to Paris, where he stayed for 11 years, training as a painter under Gustave Boulanger and Jean-Léon Gérôme. On returning to Turkey he served in various official positions, including two years in Baghdad as chargé d’affaires, while at the same time continuing to paint. In 1873 he worked on a catalogue of costumes of the Ottoman empire, with photographic illustrations, for the Weltausstellung in Vienna. In 1881 he was appointed director of the Archaeological Museum at the Çinili Köşk, Topkapı Palace, in Istanbul. He persuaded Sultan Abdülhamid II (reg 1876–1909) to issue an order against the traffic in antiquities, which was put into effect in 1883, and he began to direct excavations within the Ottoman empire. As a result he brought together Classical and Islamic objects for the museum in Istanbul, including the Sarcophagus of Alexander, unearthed in Sidon in ...

Article

Newton, Sir Charles  

(Thomas)

(b Clungunford, Salop, 1816; d Margate, Kent, Nov 28, 1894).

English archaeologist and diplomat. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. Against his family’s wishes, in 1840 he entered the British Museum, London, as an assistant in the Department of Antiquities. After consular postings in Lesbos and Rhodes (1852–3), he excavated on Kalymnos (1854–5). In 1856 he investigated the site of the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (see Halikarnassos §2, (iii)), and later carried out excavations at Knidos and Didyma. He also discovered the bronze serpentine Tripod of Plataia from Delphi in the Hippodrome at Istanbul. He was consul in Rome in 1859–60, and in 1861 he married Mary Severn, a painter and the daughter of Joseph Severn. In 1860 Newton took up the newly created post of Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, and during the period 1864–74 he was instrumental in acquiring a number of collections for the ...