Elizabeth French

Early life

Elizabeth B. French was born in 1931.

Career

French developed a detailed classification scheme for a series of Mycenaean terra cotta figurines dating from the Late Helladic period (c.1500 - 1100 B.C.). She coined the term kourotrophos for a particular class of these artifacts depicting a woman holding a child. She has been involved in excavation and publication of archaeological excavation at Mycenae for many years and recently completed a survey of the remains around Mycenae in collaboration with the Archaeological Society of Athens. She wrote an account of the monuments and history of Mycenae itself. Her joint publication with P.S. Stockhammer, 'Correlating recent research: the pottery of Mycenae and Tiryns in the second half of the 13th Century BC', Annual of the British School at Athens, 106 (2009) 175-232 is the first attempt to align discoveries at the two most important Mycenaean sites.