Olga Palagia

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Archaeology and Art History, Faculty Member

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laura phillips

University of Oklahoma

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Université libre de Bruxelles

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National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

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Necrology: Sir John Boardman, 1927-2024

American Journal of Archaeology 129, 2025

John Boardman was a towering figure who dominated the study of Greek art and archaeology in the s... more John Boardman was a towering figure who dominated the study of Greek art and archaeology in the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st. His was a brilliant mind, which could be intimidating as he often anticipated one's reactions and could be well ahead of his contemporaries. He truly was one of the luminaries of classical studies on the world stage. His academic career was spent at the University of Oxford, where he taught an international cast of pupils, many of whom went on to teach in their home countries, carrying on a tradition of excellence to younger generations. His teaching was supplemented by a spate of handbooks, translated into several languages. 1 In awe of him, students were inspired by his example of hard work and dedication. "How many hours did you spend in the library today?" was the dreaded question to the usual suspects. Along with lives, he also touched a great range of subjects and was a leading specialist in disparate fields such as vase painting and iconography, sculpture, gems, colonization, and the impact of the Greeks in Asia. This short notice cannot do justice to his multifaceted personality. His memoirs give a succinct account of his life and works, and the reader is referred there for more details. 2 He was born on 20 August 1927 in Ilford, Essex, the son of Frederick Archibald Boardman and Clara Wells. His parents had been born in the 19th century and were already in their forties when he arrived. 3 He died on 23 May 2024 at a hospice near his home in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. He is survived by his children, Julia and Mark, and two grandchildren. His wife, Sheila Stanford, died in 2005. John Boardman read Classics in Magdalen College, Cambridge, where he was mentored by Robert M. Cook, a Greek pottery specialist. Cook advised him to pursue research on early pottery in the British School at Athens, where he stayed from 1948 to 1950. He returned to Athens in 1952 to serve as assistant director of the British School until 1955. During his tenure, and while he was on his honeymoon on Aegina, he picked up an inscribed fragment of a painted clay plaque exposed by recent rain in the soil near the temple of Apollo. He recognized it as being the earliest painted Greek inscription (ca. 700 BCE) and promptly published it in 1954. 4 He donated the fragment to the Athens National Museum, where it is on display with his name as donor. In the British School library, he came across Adolf Furtwängler's volumes on Greek gems, which provided the inspiration for a lifelong interest. During his

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