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Greek Archaeological Service
The Greek Archaeological Service (Greek: Αρχαιολογική Υπηρεσία, romanised: Archaiologikí Ypiresía) is a state service, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture, responsible for the oversight of all archaeological excavations, museums and the country's archaeological heritage in general.
The Greek Archaeological Service is the oldest such institution in Europe: it was founded in 1833, on the back of state efforts to regulate antiquities that had been ongoing since at least 1825, and given its legal basis in 1834. Its officers were known as "ephors" for most of its history, and have included some of Greece's foremost archaeologists, including Christos Tsountas, Valerios Stais, and Semni Karouzou. Its directors, originally under the title of "Ephor General", have included Kyriakos Pittakis, Panagiotis Kavvadias and Spyridon Marinatos, and have been influential both in the excavation and conservation of Greek antiquities and in the shaping of archaeological law.
Initially a small department, usually comprising only the Ephor General, the Archaeological Service gradually expanded over the second half of the nineteenth century. Panagiotis Efstratiadis began the process of recruiting additional archaeologists and expanding the service's operations outside Athens, while Panagiotis Kavvadias expanded its numbers further and instituted a competitive system of examination for prospective ephors. The service's prestige declined following the ousting of Kavvadias in 1909, though its operations expanded to include a museum of Byzantine archaeology and via the archaeological law of 1932, which gave it authority to issue excavation permits to Greece's foreign archaeological institutes. Under the dictatorial prime minister Ioannis Metaxas and the service's director Spyridon Marinatos, legislation passed in 1939 banned women from joining the Archaeological Service or serving as the directors of museums and regional ephorates. This ban was overturned in 1959 by John Papadimitriou, who secured additional funding and political independence for the service.
The Archaeological Service was again reorganised in 1982, following Marinatos's return to the directorship under the Regime of the Colonels: this reform ended the use of the title of "ephor" for archaeological officials. In 2014, it was again reformed to amalgamate the ephorates of prehistoric and classical archaeology with those of Byzantine and later archaeology, creating a single regional unit for each area of Greece.
The Greek Archaeological Service is the oldest such service in Europe, being founded in 1833 and formally legally instituted in 1834. Following lobbying from the humanist scholar Adamantios Korais, the Greek interior minister, Grigorios Dimitrios (generally known as Papaflessas) issued a decree in 1825, which was the first governmental attempt in Greece to regulate collections of antiquities and ensure the protection of ancient remains. A further decree, issued in 1827, prohibited the export or sale of Greek antiquities outside Greece. Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first head of state of independent Greece, appointed the Corfiote antiquarian Andreas Moustoxydis as "Director and Ephor" of the first national archaeological museum, then on the island of Aegina, in October 1829. Mustoxydis resigned in March 1832, following the assassination of Kapodistrias.
The Archaeological Service was formally instituted by a decree of 17 July [O.S. 5 July] 1833 by the Minister for Education, Spyridon Trikoupis, founded the Greek Archaeological Service. Trikoupis appointed the Bavarian architect Adolf Weissenberg as "Ephor of Antiquities" (Greek: Ἔφορος τῶν ἀρχαιοτήτων, romanised: eforos ton archaiotiton) with responsibility for "the conservation, discovery and collection of the archaeological treasures of the kingdom". Three others were appointed with the title of 'sub-ephor' (Greek: ὑποέφορος, romanised: hupoeforos): Kyriakos Pittakis, for central and northern Greece; Ludwig Ross, for the Peloponnese, and Ioannis Kokkonis for the Aegean Islands. The service was given formal legal constitution by a law of 13 February [O.S. 1 February] 1834. Officers of the Archaeological Service were known as ephors (lit. 'overseers').
Weissenberg's short tenure saw the passage of the Archaeological Law of 10/22 May 1834, which named all antiquities in Greece as the "national property of all the Greeks", asserted the ownership of the state over all archaeological sites not already on private land and created the core administrative structure of the Archaeological Service. He was accused by Ross of lacking interest in antiquities, and also attracted the enmity of Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, head of the regency council of the underage King Otto, by trying to organise opposition to his government alongside the regent Georg Ludwig von Maurer,. Both Weissenberg and von Maurer were sacked (along with Kokkonis) in September 1834 and recalled to Bavaria. In Weissenberg's stead, Ross was named as Ephor General of Antiquities, with Pittakis and Athanasios Iatridis as his assistants. Ross was himself forced to resign in 1836, following a public feud with Pittakis over a series of inscriptions known as the "Naval Records", of which Ross had sent sketches to the German scholar August Böckh for the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, his compilation of ancient Greek inscriptions, despite having not yet received approval to publish them. The affair became a focal point for Greek resentment against the mostly Bavarian northern-European scholars who, on the invitation of King Otto, dominated Greek archaeology.
On Ross's resignation, Pittakis was appointed ephor of the Central Public Museum for Antiquities, making him the most senior archaeologist employed by the Greek Archaeological Service and its de facto head. He received the title of Ephor General in 1843. Pittakis served until his death in 1863, making widespread excavations, restorations and demolitions on the Acropolis of Athens, including the destruction of the Parthenon mosque, large-scale restorations to the Propylaia, and authorising the use of explosives by the French scholar Charles Ernest Beulé to uncover what became known as the Beulé Gate.
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Greek Archaeological Service
The Greek Archaeological Service (Greek: Αρχαιολογική Υπηρεσία, romanised: Archaiologikí Ypiresía) is a state service, under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture, responsible for the oversight of all archaeological excavations, museums and the country's archaeological heritage in general.
The Greek Archaeological Service is the oldest such institution in Europe: it was founded in 1833, on the back of state efforts to regulate antiquities that had been ongoing since at least 1825, and given its legal basis in 1834. Its officers were known as "ephors" for most of its history, and have included some of Greece's foremost archaeologists, including Christos Tsountas, Valerios Stais, and Semni Karouzou. Its directors, originally under the title of "Ephor General", have included Kyriakos Pittakis, Panagiotis Kavvadias and Spyridon Marinatos, and have been influential both in the excavation and conservation of Greek antiquities and in the shaping of archaeological law.
Initially a small department, usually comprising only the Ephor General, the Archaeological Service gradually expanded over the second half of the nineteenth century. Panagiotis Efstratiadis began the process of recruiting additional archaeologists and expanding the service's operations outside Athens, while Panagiotis Kavvadias expanded its numbers further and instituted a competitive system of examination for prospective ephors. The service's prestige declined following the ousting of Kavvadias in 1909, though its operations expanded to include a museum of Byzantine archaeology and via the archaeological law of 1932, which gave it authority to issue excavation permits to Greece's foreign archaeological institutes. Under the dictatorial prime minister Ioannis Metaxas and the service's director Spyridon Marinatos, legislation passed in 1939 banned women from joining the Archaeological Service or serving as the directors of museums and regional ephorates. This ban was overturned in 1959 by John Papadimitriou, who secured additional funding and political independence for the service.
The Archaeological Service was again reorganised in 1982, following Marinatos's return to the directorship under the Regime of the Colonels: this reform ended the use of the title of "ephor" for archaeological officials. In 2014, it was again reformed to amalgamate the ephorates of prehistoric and classical archaeology with those of Byzantine and later archaeology, creating a single regional unit for each area of Greece.
The Greek Archaeological Service is the oldest such service in Europe, being founded in 1833 and formally legally instituted in 1834. Following lobbying from the humanist scholar Adamantios Korais, the Greek interior minister, Grigorios Dimitrios (generally known as Papaflessas) issued a decree in 1825, which was the first governmental attempt in Greece to regulate collections of antiquities and ensure the protection of ancient remains. A further decree, issued in 1827, prohibited the export or sale of Greek antiquities outside Greece. Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first head of state of independent Greece, appointed the Corfiote antiquarian Andreas Moustoxydis as "Director and Ephor" of the first national archaeological museum, then on the island of Aegina, in October 1829. Mustoxydis resigned in March 1832, following the assassination of Kapodistrias.
The Archaeological Service was formally instituted by a decree of 17 July [O.S. 5 July] 1833 by the Minister for Education, Spyridon Trikoupis, founded the Greek Archaeological Service. Trikoupis appointed the Bavarian architect Adolf Weissenberg as "Ephor of Antiquities" (Greek: Ἔφορος τῶν ἀρχαιοτήτων, romanised: eforos ton archaiotiton) with responsibility for "the conservation, discovery and collection of the archaeological treasures of the kingdom". Three others were appointed with the title of 'sub-ephor' (Greek: ὑποέφορος, romanised: hupoeforos): Kyriakos Pittakis, for central and northern Greece; Ludwig Ross, for the Peloponnese, and Ioannis Kokkonis for the Aegean Islands. The service was given formal legal constitution by a law of 13 February [O.S. 1 February] 1834. Officers of the Archaeological Service were known as ephors (lit. 'overseers').
Weissenberg's short tenure saw the passage of the Archaeological Law of 10/22 May 1834, which named all antiquities in Greece as the "national property of all the Greeks", asserted the ownership of the state over all archaeological sites not already on private land and created the core administrative structure of the Archaeological Service. He was accused by Ross of lacking interest in antiquities, and also attracted the enmity of Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, head of the regency council of the underage King Otto, by trying to organise opposition to his government alongside the regent Georg Ludwig von Maurer,. Both Weissenberg and von Maurer were sacked (along with Kokkonis) in September 1834 and recalled to Bavaria. In Weissenberg's stead, Ross was named as Ephor General of Antiquities, with Pittakis and Athanasios Iatridis as his assistants. Ross was himself forced to resign in 1836, following a public feud with Pittakis over a series of inscriptions known as the "Naval Records", of which Ross had sent sketches to the German scholar August Böckh for the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, his compilation of ancient Greek inscriptions, despite having not yet received approval to publish them. The affair became a focal point for Greek resentment against the mostly Bavarian northern-European scholars who, on the invitation of King Otto, dominated Greek archaeology.
On Ross's resignation, Pittakis was appointed ephor of the Central Public Museum for Antiquities, making him the most senior archaeologist employed by the Greek Archaeological Service and its de facto head. He received the title of Ephor General in 1843. Pittakis served until his death in 1863, making widespread excavations, restorations and demolitions on the Acropolis of Athens, including the destruction of the Parthenon mosque, large-scale restorations to the Propylaia, and authorising the use of explosives by the French scholar Charles Ernest Beulé to uncover what became known as the Beulé Gate.