Name Dorothy Thompson Role Archaeologist | Spouse Homer Thompson (m. 1934) Education Bryn Mawr College | |
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Died May 10, 2001, Hightstown, New Jersey, United States Books Ancient Shopping Center, the Athenian Agora Awards Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America | ||
Dorothy Burr Thompson (19 August 1900 – 10 May 2001) was a classical archaeologist and art historian at Bryn Mawr College and a leading authority on Hellenistic terracotta figurines.
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Biography
Thompson came from a prominent Philadelphia family; her father was the attorney Charles Henry Burr, Jr. and her mother was novelist and biographer Anna Robeson Brown. Her grandfather was noted orator and lawyer Henry Armitt Brown. Early in life Thompson studied the Classics, attending Miss Hill's School in Center City, Pa., and The Latin School in Philadelphia. She began her study of Latin at age 9 and ancient Greek at 12. At age 13, she took a Grand Tour of Europe, visiting museums and monuments of Europe. In 1919 she began her studies at Bryn Mawr College where she took courses with Rhys Carpenter and Mary Hamilton Swindler. She graduated summa cum laude in 1923, the first graduate with a major in Greek and archaeology, and was awarded the college's European Fellowship. She used the fellowship to study at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, works on excavations with Carl Blegen at Phlius and Hetty Goldman at Eutresis.
In 1925 Thompson discovered a tholos tomb that proved to be the burial place of the king and queen of Midea. She completed her Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr College in 1931; it entailed a study of the 117 Hellenistic terracotta figures from Myrina in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In 1932 Thompson was appointed the first female Fellow of the Athenian Agora excavations. The dig's assistant director of field work was the Canadian archaeologist Homer Thompson; the two married in 1934. Homer Thompson accepted positions as curator of the classical collection at the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology and assistant professor in fine arts at the University of Toronto. Thompson had three daughters by 1935, but in 1936, Burr Thompson discovered the garden of the Temple of Hephaistos in the agora at Athens. In 1946 her husband accepted a chair at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and Burr Thompson served as acting director of the Royal Ontario Museum until she moved to Princeton, New Jersey the following year. At Princeton she continued to publish and carry out her research. In 1987 she was awarded the Gold Medal for distinguished achievement by the Archaeological Institute of America. She died in Hightstown, New Jersey and is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery.