Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 13, 2024
Alan Wace (13 July 1879 – 9 November 1957) was an English archaeologist who served as director of the British School at Athens between 1914 and 1923. He excavated widely in Thessaly, Laconia and Egypt, and at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in Greece. Along with Carl Blegen, Wace argued against the established scholarly view that Minoan Crete had dominated mainland Greek culture during the Bronze Age. His excavations at Mycenae in the early 1920s established a chronology for the site's domed tombs that largely proved his theory correct. Wace served as the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge between 1934 and 1944, and ended his career at Alexandria's Farouk I University. During both world wars, he worked for the British intelligence services, including as a section head for MI6 during the Second World War. His daughter, Lisa French, also became an archaeologist and excavated at Mycenae. (Full article...)