Founded in 1879, the Hellenic Society continues to support research in the classical world. With subscriptions, it helped to finance travels and explorations into Greece and Asia Minor in the 1880s and provided grants for some of the early British School at Athens students.

The Society has made some of its archive relating to its founder George Macmillan, and one of the archaeologists it first supported, William Mitchell Ramsay, available online. The Society also holds the photographic collection of WJ Stillman, comprising historic images of Greece.

​Twitter: @Hellenic_Soc
Website: https://www.hellenicsociety.org.uk/
Digital Collections: https://www.hellenicsociety.org.uk/about-us/george-a-macmillan-lettres/

Further Reading: 
Doyle, Richella. 2009. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Archive of George A. Macmillan's Personal Papers. Archaeological Reports 56: 203-218.

Summary by Amara Thornton

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a British traveller, archaeologist and political official, who is most well known for her participation in intelligence with the Arab Bureau during the First World War, her subsequent role as Political Advisor to the Cairo Peace Conference in 1919, and her role as the Director of Antiquities in Iraq from 1922 to 1926 and founder of the Museum of Antiquities (now Iraq Museum) in Baghdad.  Educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in Modern History, Bell made her name as a noted traveller and mountaineer from the 1890s onwards, publishing several travel books before the First World War.

Newcastle University holds a large collection of Bell's letters, diaries and photographs showing her life and explorations in the Middle East. The University has also developed a comic book based on Bell's life and letters, as well as teachers' resources for schools.

Scope of collection:
photographs (inc. Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Balkans, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Canada and Bell's "personalia"), diaries (1877-1917), letters (1874-1926)

University Website: http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/
Archive website: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/gertrudebell/
Twitter: @GertrudeBellArc
Email: [email protected]

Founded in 1886, the British School at Athens (BSA) continues to be a centre for the study of archaeology, art and architecture of ancient Greece and the Greek world. The BSA has an extensive archive including administrative records of the School, records of the School's many excavations, and personal papers. A recent addition to the School's Digital Collections is the 1887 diary of Emily Penrose, daughter of the School's first Director Francis Cranmer Penrose, charting her time in Athens.

Website: https://www.bsa.ac.uk/
Twitter: @BSAthens
Archive webpage: www.bsa.ac.uk/about-us/archive/
Digital Collections: https://digital.bsa.ac.uk/

Summary by Amara Thornton

John Garstang (1876-1956) was a British archaeologist who directed excavations in Britain, Egypt, Sudan, Asia Minor/Turkey, British Mandate Palestine and British Mandate Transjordan.  As an Oxford student, he worked first on Romano-British sites under Professor Francis Haverfield.  He subsequently became a student under Flinders Petrie's Egyptian Research Account training scheme, and began working in Egypt.  He was first Honorary Reader in Egyptology at Liverpool University, and after Liverpool's Institute of Archaeology was set up he became Professor of the Methods and Practice of Archaeology at Liverpool.

The Garstang Museum at Liverpool holds records relating to the Institute of Archaeology at Liverpool, as well as records relating to the excavation activities of Garstang and a number of other archaeologists working primarily in Egypt, Sudan and Asia Minor during the 20th century.

Scope of collection:
Administrative records, excavation records, correspondence, museum records, photographs, lantern slides. For further details see the Garstang Museum Jisc/Archives Hub listing.

Twitter: @GarstangMuseum
Website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/archaeology-classics-and-egyptology/garstang-museum/
Pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/garstangm/mero%C3%AB-africas-forgotten-empire/
Email: [email protected]

Summary by Amara Thornton

Established in 1937 in London to provide specialist training in archaeology.  Originally a separate insitution within the University of London, the Institute of Archaeology merged with UCL in the 1980s.  The UCL Institute of Archaeology has a large collection of archaeological archives, and is particularly strong in representing British archaeologists working in the Middle East in the early 20th century.  

Scope of Collection:
Field notes, photographs, correspondence, diaries, manuscript drafts, ephemera, films.

Relevant Links:
Institute of Archaeology archives page
www.filmingantiquity.com
Photographs of archaeological sites in British Mandate Transjordan and Palestine (Horsfield archive) via Micropasts Flickr

Relevant Contacts:
Ian Carroll, Collections Manager

Further Reading:
Moshenska, G., Schadla-Hall, T. 2011. Mortimer Wheeler’s Theatre of the Past. Public Archaeology, 10 (1): 46-55. doi:10.1179/175355311X12991501673221

Sparks, R.T., Laidlaw, S. 2007. A Future for the Past: Petrie's Palestinian Collection. Dorcester Dorset: Henry Ling.

Sparks, R.T. 2014. Near Eastern encounters: the collections and archives of the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. In The Forgotten Kingdom. Past and Present Excavations at Tell Atchana/Alalakh. Koc University Press.

Sparks, R.T. 2013. Publicising Petrie: Financing fieldwork in British Mandate Palestine (1926-1938). Present Pasts, 5 (1), 2. doi:10.5334/pp.56

Thornton, A. 2016. GL Harding Presents Digging in Palestine - Archaeology on Film. British Archaeology, 149: 38-43.

Thornton, A. 2014. The Nobody: Exploring Archaeological Identity with George Horsfield (1882-1956). Archaeology International 17: 137-156. doi:10.5334/ai.1720

Thornton, A., Perry, S. 2011. Collection and Production: The History of the Institute of Archaeology through Photography. Archaeology International 13 (0), doi:10.5334/ai.1319