Humfry Gilbert Garth Payne (19 February 1902 – 9 May 1936) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens from 1929 to his death.

Personal

Born at

Wendover Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east ...

, Payne was the only son of the historian

Edward John Payne Edward John Payne (22 July 1844 – 26 December 1904) was an English barrister and historian specializing in colonial history. Life The elder son of Edward William Payne, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Payne was educated at High Wycombe Roya ...

, fellow of University College Oxford, and Emma Leonora Helena ( Pertz). He attended

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Head ...

and afterwards

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

where he was awarded first class honours in classical Mods (1922) and Greats (1924). In 1926, he married the journalist

Dilys Powell Elizabeth Dilys Powell, CBE (20 July 1901 – 3 June 1995) was a British film critic and travel writer who contributed to ''The Sunday Times'' for more than 50 years. Powell was known for her receptiveness to cultural change in the cinema and ...

. Payne was the younger brother of the astronomer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...

(1900–1979).

Career

A research studentship at Christ Church (1926 to 1931) and assistantship in the department of antiquities at the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University o ...

(1926 to 1928) followed during which he researched in Mediterranean archaeology. Payne received the Conington Prize for classical learning in 1927 for work on painted Greek pottery. He supervised partially

John Beazley Sir John Davidson Beazley, (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the U ...

and Alan Blakeway and they published joint papers on black-figured

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

pottery excavated at

Naucratis Naucratis or Naukratis ( Ancient Greek: , "Naval Command"; Egyptian: , , , Coptic: ) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the cit ...

. There were large collections of vase material from Corinthia, Payne took up the challenge of studying and collating the information which he published in 1931 as ''Necrocorinthia'', which was admired and made his name throughout the archaeological world. Payne spent summer archaeological excavation seasons 1927–1929 on Crete, around

Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...

where

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...

was working. In 1929, his work had been recognised when he was appointed as the director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens. He then, in 1930, instigated the dig at Perachora, a settlement on the Gerania peninsula on the

Gulf of Corinth The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf ( el, Κορινθιακός Kόλπος, ''Korinthiakόs Kόlpos'', ) is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea, separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece. It is bounded in the east by the Isth ...

. There the sanctuary and harbour sites were to be dug from 1930 to 1933, and later in 1939 and in the 1960s. This work was written up as ''Perachora: the sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia'', mostly by Payne, edited by Thomas Dunbabin to be published in 1940; a second volume was to be published in 1962. He also worked on archaic sculptures which had been found at the

Acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...

50 years earlier. This work, published in 1936 as ''Archaic marble sculpture from the Acropolis'' was to confirm his reputation. It changed views on the origin of many pieces; for example it identified potential reunions of sculptured parts in French museums with other parts in the Acropolis Museum. His career came to an early end when he died from an infection of

staphylococcus ''Staphylococcus'' is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria in the family Staphylococcaceae from the order Bacillales. Under the microscope, they appear spherical (cocci), and form in grape-like clusters. ''Staphylococcus'' species are facultat ...

in the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens. He was 34 years old. Biography
aegeussociety.org. Accessed 6 September 2022. He is buried in the cemetery of Agios Georgios (St George) at Mycenae where his tombstone bears the words ''Mourn not for Adonais'', a quotation from Percy Bysse Shelley's poem ''

Adonais ''Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.'' () is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and best-known works.John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

Written works

* ''Necrocorinthia: a study of Corinthian art in the archaic period''. (1931), Oxford: Clarendon Press. * ''Archaic marble sculpture from the Acropolis'', (1936), Manchester: Cresset Press (with Gerard Mackworth Young). * ''Perachora: the sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia'', (1940), Oxford: Clarendon Press (ed T J Dunbabin). * ''Protokorinthische Vasenmalerei'', (1974), Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, (reprint).

References

Sources

* Obituary, ''The Times'', 11 May 1936, pg 17. * ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. OUP (2004). {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, Humfry Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English archaeologists Scholars of ancient Greek pottery 1902 births 1936 deaths People from Wendover Infectious disease deaths in Greece Deaths from staphylococcal infection People educated at Westminster School, London Directors of the British School at Athens

Personal

Career

Written works

Further reading

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Sources