John Percival Droop (4 October 1882 – 26 September 1963, in

Vence Vence (; ) is a commune set in the hills of the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France, north of Nice and Antibes on the Mediterranean coast. Ecclesiastical history The first known Bishop ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

classical archaeologist of

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descent.

After attending

Marlborough College Marlborough College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English private boarding school) for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. It was founded as Marlborough School in 1843 by the Dean of Manchester, George ...

and

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 ...

, Droop became a student of the

British School at Athens The British School at Athens (BSA; ) is an institute for advanced research, one of the eight British International Research Institutes supported by the British Academy, that promotes the study of Greece in all its aspects. Under UK law it is a reg ...

, where he excavated at

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

, in

Thessaly Thessaly ( ; ; ancient Aeolic Greek#Thessalian, Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic regions of Greece, geographic and modern administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient Thessaly, a ...

, on

Milos Milos or Melos (; , ; ) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. It is the southwestern-most island of the Cyclades group. The ''Venus de Milo'' (now in the Louvre), the ''Poseidon of Melos'' (now in the ...

and on

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

. He later became a full member of the BSA. In 1911, Droop joined T. Eric Peet's Egypt Exploration Fund at Abydos, where he and Peet developed a system for dating pre-dynastic Egyptian ceramics. During the First World War, Droop worked for the Admiralty, and remained in post until 1921, when he was appointed the Charles W. Jones Professor of Classical Archaeology in the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

, a position he held until 1948. He excavated widely: at

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

, Bainbridge and

Lancaster Lancaster may refer to: Lands and titles *The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire *Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies *Duke of Lancaster *Earl of Lancaster *House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty ...

in Britain, and at Niebla in Spain. He edited the scholarly journal ''Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology'' from 1937 until 1948. Droop gives his name to an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, storing, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom, forming a seamless curve ...

form, dating from the 6th century BC, which he studied and categorised. Droop also researched the temple of

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

Orthia at

. He was the son of

Henry Richmond Droop Henry Richmond Droop (12 September 1832 – 21 March 1884) was an English barrister after whom the Droop quota is named. He also may have been the first to write down what later became known as Duverger's Law, in 1869. He authored the book "On ...

(1832–1884), the mathematician, and Clara Baily ( 1841 – 7 September 1921). In 1916, he married Ita Bride Moloney; they had three children.

Works

*1908. "Two Cyrenaic Kylikes", ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 28:175–179. *1910. "The dates of the vases called 'Cyrenaic", ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 30:1–34. *1932. "Droop Cups and the Dating of Laconian Pottery", ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 52:303–304.

References

Sources

* * * British classical archaeologists Academics of the University of Liverpool 1882 births 1963 deaths 20th-century British archaeologists People educated at Marlborough College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge {{UK-archaeologist-stub