Sterling Dow (19 November 1903,

Portland, Maine Portland is the List of municipalities in Maine, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat, seat of Cumberland County, Maine, Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 at the 2020 census. The Portland metropolit ...

– 9 January 1995,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

) was an American classical archaeologist,

epigrapher Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

, and professor of archaeology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. (with Dow's publication list) After secondary education at

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

, Dow matriculated in 1921 at Harvard University (This article has the misspelling "Burt Hodge Hill" instead of the correct "Bert Hodge Hill".) and graduated there in 1925 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. As the winner of the Fiske Scholarship, Dow spent the academic year 1925–1926 studying ancient history at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. Returning to Harvard in 1926, he graduated with an M.A. in 1928 and a Ph.D. in history in 1936. His doctoral supervisor was the Canadian ancient historian William Scott Ferguson (1875–1954). Dow married Elizabeth Sanderson Flagg in 1931. Sterling and Elizabeth Dow spent the years from 1931 to 1936 in Athens, Greece and often worked together on making paper impressions of stone inscriptions unearthed from the

Ancient Agora of Athens The ancient Agora of Athens (also called the Classical Agora) is an ancient Greek agora. It is located to the northwest of the Acropolis, and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill known as the Agoraios ...

by excavations sponsored by the

American School of Classical Studies The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA; ) is one of 19 foreign archaeological institutes in Athens, Greece. It is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). CAORC is a private not-for-profit federati ...

. A Guggenheim Fellowship for the academic year 1934–1935 and various Harvard awards supported Dow in Athens. He benefitted from working with the epigrapher Johannes Kirchner (1859–1940). During his career Dow was awarded two more Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1959 and 1966). Dow's colleagues in Athens included Bert Hodge Hill, Homer Thompson, William Bell Dinsmoor, Virginia Grace, and Lucy Shoe. At Harvard, Dow was an instructor from 1936 to 1941, an associate professor from 1941 to 1948, Professor of History and Greek from 1946 to 1948, and the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology from 1949 to 1970, when he retired as professor emeritus. During WW II, he was given an academic leave of absence and served as a member of the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

in Washington, DC, and Egypt. During the academic year 1966–1967 he was on sabbatical in Athens as the Annual Professor at the American School of Classical Studies. From 1970 to 1977 he was a professor of Greek civilization and history at Boston College. For the academic year 1977–1978, he was a professor of classics at Vassar College. Dow was given three honorary degrees. He was a founder of ''Archaeology'' magazine and the American Research Center in Egypt. From 1946 to 1948 he was the president of the

Archaeological Institute of America The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America, North America's oldest learned society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and ...

. In 1984 Duke University Press published a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

in honor of his 80th birthday. Ohio State University's Center for Epigraphical and Paleographical Studies administers The Sterling and Elizabeth Dow Fellowship in Greek epigraphy and history. Dow's wife died in 1990 and he died in 1995. There was a memorial service for Dow in Harvard's Memorial Church on 8 April 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dow, Sterling American classical archaeologists Epigraphers Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty Academics from Portland, Maine 1903 births 1995 deaths Presidents of the Archaeological Institute of America