Robert Manuel Cook FBA (4 July 1909 – 10 August 2000) was a classical scholar and classical archaeologist from England with expertise in Greek painted vases. He was Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, the author of several academic texts and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1976.
Robert Cook was born in Sheffield on 4 July 1909, the son of a clergyman, and educated at Marlborough College and Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a double first in Classics. In 1946, after pre-war lecturing positions at the University of Manchester and wartime service in the Civil Service, Cook took up the position of Laurence reader in classical archaeology at Cambridge University, which he held until his elevation in 1962 to the Laurence chair where he remained until his formal retirement in 1976. Cook published extensively during his career; his Greek Painted Pottery (1962) remains a standard textbook for students of the subject.
His younger brother was John Manuel Cook, also a noted scholar of antiquity.
In retirement Cook acted as chairman of the British School at Athens (1983-1987). He died in Cambridge on 10 August 2000 aged 91.
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum ... British Museum ... Descriptions of the ancient vases in the Department (Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Great Britain. fasc. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13.) by Robert Manuel Cook, Edgar John Forsdyke, Frederick Norman Pryce, and Arthur Hamilton Smith ASIN: B0014KZ0KUIonia and Greece in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C (1948) ASIN: B000WUDKT6Amasis mepoiesen (Journal of Hellenic Studies), Council of the Society (1949) ASIN: B0007KCI94Painted inscriptions on Chiot pottery (Annual of the British School at Athens, MacMillan (1952) ASIN: B0007KCI8UA list of Clazomenian pottery (Annual of the British School at Athens, 1952 ASIN: B0007KC2S6British Museum (Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities) (Corpus vasorum antiquorum. Great Britain) Printed by order of the Trustees of the British Museum (1954) ASIN: B0007IZ7ASThucydides as archaeologist (Annual of the British School at Athens), MacMillan (1955) ASIN: B0007KCIB2Speculations on the origin of coinage Bell & Howell Co., Micro Photo Div (1958) ASIN: B0007HDDGEGreek Painted Pottery (Handbooks of archaeology) (1960) Methuen (1960) ASIN: B001OAY67IThe Greeks till Alexander (Ancient peoples and places series) Thames & Hudson (1962) ASIN: B0000CLAQIA hydria of the Campana group in Bonn (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen), (1963) ASIN: B0007KC2SGNiobe and her children (University of Cambridge Inaugural lectures), Cambridge U.P (1964) ASIN: B0000CM3UAA corinthianising dinos in Cambridge, " L'Erma " di Bretschneider (1965) ASIN: B0007KCIBCSouthern Greece: an archaeological guide. Attica, Delphi and the Peloponnese. With illustrations, including plans and maps, (1968) ASIN: B000WULHMSA note on the absolute chronology of the eighth centuries and seventh centuries B.C (Annual of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, (1969) ASIN: B0007KBOOY'Epoiesen' on Greek vases (Journal of Hellenic Studies), (1971) ASIN: B0007C95GQGreek Art: Its Development, Character and Influence, Farrar Straus & Giroux (T) (1973) ISBN 0-374-16670-6 ISBN 978-0374166700Greek and Roman Pottery (with R.J. Charleston), Kodansha America, Inc (1979) ISBN 0-87011-343-7 ISBN 978-0870113437