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Apart from this demonstration of high human antiquity in Australia, Mulvaney forged much of the agenda of Australian prehistoric archaeology in the 1970s with the publication of his Prehistory of Australia in 1969 (now in its third edition). Specifically interested in Australian prehistory as a central element in the story of Aboriginal Australia, Mulvaney championed the notion of archaeology and anthropology working together to enlighten non-Aboriginal Australians about the richness and variety of pre- (and post-) European life in Australia. Of equal importance was Mulvaney’s service to his profession through his membership in key government committees and investigations, his advocacy of the cause of preserving the human heritage of Australia, and his defense of the principles of liberal inquiry.

Tim Murray

References

Bonyhady, T., and T. Griffith, eds. 1996. Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

Mycenae

See Greece

Myres, Sir John Linton

(1869–1954)

John L. Myres attended Winchester School and then New College, Oxford. After completing his undergraduate degree he became a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and visited the Mediterranean in 1892, where he worked with sir john evans on Crete. By comparing Cretan vases with vase fragments found by sir william matthew flinders petrie in Egypt, Myres was able to argue for trade links between the ancient civilizations of Crete and Egypt. He joined the British School’s excavation of Palakastro and Petsofa on Crete and published his finds.

In 1894 Myres began excavating on cyprus at Kition, and with a German colleague, he wrote the catalog of the Cyprus Museum. In 1907 he became a professor of Greek and a lecturer in ancient geography at Liverpool University, but three years later he returned to Oxford as the new Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, a position he held until 1939. He wrote the popular study The Dawn of History in 1911 and contributed several chapters to the Cambridge Ancient History. During World War I his detailed knowledge of the geography and people of the eastern Mediterranean was put to use when he led raiding operations from a former royal yacht onto the coast of turkey. He was made a commander of the Royal Navy and was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Greek Order of George I.

In 1927 on the death of sir arthur evans, Myres took on the task of completing the editing and publishing of the Linear B tablets from knossos, and he was pleased that when Michael Ventris deciphered it in 1952, Linear B proved to be Greek. In 1930 Myres’s best-known work—Who Were the Greeks?—was published, followed by Herodotus, Father of History and Geographical History in Greek Lands in 1953. In all these works he used not only the classics but also a multidisciplinary approach, combining ancient history, archaeology, geography, and anthropology. He was knighted in 1943 and won the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographic Society in 1953. During World War II, once again using his great geographic knowledge of the eastern Mediterranean, he edited handbooks for naval intelligence. He was president of the Royal Anthroplogical Institute from 1928 to 1931, president of the Hellenic Society from 1935 to 1938, and chairman of the British School at Athens from 1934 to 1947.

Tim Murray