Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal by Alan Kaiser

Author:Alan Kaiser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2014-11-13T04:20:49+00:00

Georg von Peschke and Euripides Melanides

Both of the men who remained in Greece, the artist von Peschke and the photographer Melanides, disappear for the most part in the years following World War II. Von Peschke clearly enjoyed his first experience drawing the Olynthus material and working with archaeologists and wanted to continue. When he and Robinson returned to Athens after wrapping up the Olynthus excavations in 1931, Robinson introduced the artist to his colleagues at the American School whom von Peschke instantly impressed and charmed. Some of the people at the School bought von Peschke’s paintings and a few still hang in the School’s halls. In 1933 he joined the excavations at Corinth as the chief architect, a position he maintained until the beginning of World War II. Von Peschke later worked at the site of Isthmia near Corinth as well until his sudden death in 1959. His star dimmed after the war, however, as interest in his artistic work faded and after his death he was quickly forgotten. Recently Von Peschke’s work has been rediscovered, however, and the Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin and Marshal College held an exhibit of his paintings as recently as 2012.72

After Ellingson returned to the United States in 1931 she exchanged letters with the photographer Melanides who sent her some pictures he had taken at Olynthus in which she appeared.73 Melanides continued to work with Robinson during the 1934 and 1938 seasons photographing architecture and artifacts from the excavation.74 With the approach of World War II his hometown of Saloniki suffered a great deal as first the Axis powers bombed strategic positions in preparation for their capture of the city in 1941, only to be followed by Allied bombing prior to the city’s liberation in 1944.75 The rooftop garden of the Mediterranean Palace Hotel where Ellingson and her colleagues spent evenings dancing in 1931 was blown off in one of these raids. Ellingson enquired of Robinson if he had news of Melanides as she feared for his safety with this destruction in Saloniki but, unfortunately, Robinson’s response does not survive and so it is not clear how Melanides and his photography business fared during the conflict.76 He did survive the war, however, and in the last mention Robinson makes of him he was helping Robinson photograph some of the Olynthus artifacts Robinson had salvaged from the museum’s wartime hiding places in 1947.77

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