Charles Waldstein (archaeologist)

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Charles Waldstein, later Sir Charles Walston KBE , was an Anglo-American archaeologist. He was born into a Jewish family in New York City on March 30, 1856. Waldstein was educated at Columbia University (A.M., 1873), and studied also at Heidelberg (Ph.D., 1875) and finally at Cambridge (M.A. and Litt.D., 1878). In 1880, he became university lecturer on classical archaeology at Cambridge University, and two years later university reader. From 1883 to 1889 he was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum; and in 1883 he was made a fellow of King's College. In 1889 he was called to Athens as director of the American School of Classical Studies, which office he held until 1893, when he became professor at the same institution. In 1895 he returned to England as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge; and he held this chair until 1901. During his stay in Athens he directed the excavations of the American Archeological Institute at the site of ancient Plataea, Eretria, where he claimed to have unearthed the tomb of Aristotle, the Heraeum of Argos, among other discoveries. Later he formed an international committee to promote the excavation of Herculaneum. He died in 1927.

[edit] Publications

Besides writing the following the books, Waldstein also published in journals numerous reports on his excavations as well as three short stories under the pseudonym Gordon Seymour which were later released under his own name as The Surface of Things (1899).