| Page 284 | |
North Africa, culminating in the book Kharga Oasis in Pre-history (1952).
Caton-Thompson’s last excavations in 1937 were of the fourth and fifth centuries b.c. Moon temple and tombs at Hureidha in the Hadhramaut of southern Arabia (now Yemen). These were the first scientific excavations in southern Arabia, and she was accompanied on this trip by Elinor Gardner and Dame Freya Stark. Their findings were written up in The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha, Hadramaut in 1944.
Between 1940 and 1946 Caton-Thompson was president of the Prehistoric Society, the only woman to hold this position. In 1944 she was elected a fellow of the British Academy and became a fellow of University College, London. She retired from field work after World War II, but continued to research and visit excavations in East Africa. In 1946 she was awarded the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and in 1954 the Burton Medal from the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1954 she was made an honorary fellow of Newnham College Cambridge, and received an honorary Litt.D. from Cambridge University. Between 1946 and 1960 she was a governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In 1961 she became a founding member of the British School of History and Archaeology in East Africa (later the British Institute in East Africa) and served on its council for ten years, becoming an honorary member. Although Caton-Thompson was widely regarded as being an archaeologist of formidable skill and determination, she never sought a position in a museum or a university. It has been rumored that she was once offered the prestigious Disney chair of archaeology at the University of Cambridge and that she refused it. It is true that her personal wealth allowed Caton-Thompson the freedom to work outside the constraints of an institution, and there can be no doubt that she used this advantage to make highly significant contributions to the archaeology of Africa and Arabia.
See also
Africa, South, Prehistory; Egypt: Predynastic
(1692–1765)
Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières-Grimord, Comte de Caylus, was an antiquary and dilettante of the early-eighteenth century who traveled widely engaging in excavation (especially in Asia Minor) and observation. French art historian Alain Schnapp (1996, 238–242) has noted that Caylus, through an extensive system of contacts built up through patronage and a common interest in the ancient past, was able to conceive of the goals of the antiquary more broadly than others before him.
Committed to publication (especially his seven-volume Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, greques, et romaines published between 1752 and 1757) and careful illustration and observation, Caylus developed a rational basis for the description and classification of the large number of objects in his collection, and in doing so, he influenced the course of French antiquarian studies in the eighteenth century.
References
Schnapp, Alain. 1996. The Discovery of the Past. London: British Museum Press.
The pre-Roman site of Keleia (Celje) is located in the southeastern part of the Savinja valley, at the foot of the Karavanke and Savinjske Alps, in Central slovenia. An early Iron Age settlement was located at Miklav-ki hrib, on the southern edge of the modern town of Celje. “The Amber Road,” a prehistoric trade and exchange route linking the Baltic with the northern Adriatic, ran through this area. A la tène settlement was occupied by the Celtic Taurisci tribe, who minted their own currency in the town. In the first century b.c. the settlement became part of the Regnum Noricum (the Kingdom of Noricum), an entity formed by Celtic tribes of the Eastern Alps. The Romans annexed the kingdom in 15 b.c. and made it the province of Noricum during the reign of Claudius (a.d. 41–54). Celeia was raised to the status of Municipium (municipium Claudium Celeia). Itineraries (such as Tabula Peutingeriana, Itinerarium Burdigalense, Itinararium
| |