Malcolm Andrew Richard Colledge (12 October 1939 – 22 June 2015) was a British archaeologist who specialized in the art of

Palmyra Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...

. He made numerous visits to the Middle East and conducted extensive research in the region. Colledge faced arrests during his archaeological work in Jordan and Turkmenistan.

Early life

Colledge was born on 12 October 1939. His father was an estate agent who by then was serving in the British Army. He had two brothers and a sister and was raised in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

. He attended

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

on a scholarship where, as a 12 year old, he heard a lecture by the archaeologist

Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Military Cross, MC Territorial Decoration, TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeolo ...

that he said caused him to become "hooked" on archaeology for life. Colledge attended

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, and graduated with a degree in classics and archaeology in 1961."Professor Malcolm Colledge", ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 24 September 2015, p. 53.

Career

Colledge's first experience of an archaeological dig was at

Lullingstone Roman Villa Lullingstone Roman Villa is a Roman villa, villa built during the Roman Britain, Roman occupation of Britain, situated in Lullingstone near the village of Eynsford in Kent, south-eastern England. The villa is located in the River Darent, Darent ...

in the late 1950s. He later recalled that Lt.-Col. Geoffrey Meates, who was in charge of the site, ran the excavations with military discipline. In 1960, Colledge visited the Middle East for the first time, travelling to Syria and Jordan. In 1961 he joined

Charles Burney Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicis ...

's dig at Yanik Tepe in Iran and later at Petra where Colledge supervised the uncovering of the main Roman street. In 1964 he completed his Ph.D. thesis for

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

on ''Greek and Roman influences in Palmyrene art''. In 1973, Colledge travelled to Iraq where he studied objects in the

Iraq Museum The Iraq Museum () is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was loo ...

and later went to

Hatra Hatra (; (); ) was an ancient Arab city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The ruins of the city lie northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul. It is considered the richest archaeologi ...

to study sculptures. He said of first visiting Palmyra that it was "love at first sight". He documented the grave reliefs and architecture and learned the Palmyran dialect of

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

. His book ''The art of Palmyra'' (1976) is a definitive work on the subject. Colledge often ventured to areas off the beaten track without official permission. In 1985 he was arrested in Jordan after accidentally walking into a restricted area and detained in an underground prison for several days before he was released by a colonel. In 1992 he was arrested in Nysa in Turkmenistan while attending a conference, eventually being released after convincing his captors that he was in the country as a guest of their president. In England, Colledge became head of the department of classics at

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

and

Queen Mary College Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and formerly Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of London. Today, ...

, University of London. With

Josef Wiesehöfer Josef Wiesehöfer (born April 5, 1951 in Wickede, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German classical scholar and former professor of Ancient history at the Department of Classics of the University of Kiel. Wiesehöfer obtained his doctorate at the Un ...

he wrote articles in the ''

Oxford Classical Dictionary The ''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (''OCD'') is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity," an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first pub ...

'' on "Ctesiphon", "Hatra", "Hecatompylus", "Nisa", and "Palmyra".
Oxford Digital Reference Shelf
',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. Retrieved 27 September 2015.

Personal life

Colledge married Margaret in 1960 and she accompanied him on many of his overseas trips. They had a son Alexander, named after

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

who was one of Colledge's heroes, but the couple divorced in 1966. Soon after, Colledge married Maria Gomez-Cristobal, a teacher of Spanish. Colledge was diagnosed with

Huntington's disease Huntington's disease (HD), also known as Huntington's chorea, is an incurable neurodegenerative disease that is mostly Genetic disorder#Autosomal dominant, inherited. It typically presents as a triad of progressive psychiatric, cognitive, and ...

in 1995.

Death

Colledge died on 22 June 2015, unaware of

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

actions in Palmyra.

Selected publications

*''The Parthians'',

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, London, 1967. (Ancient Peoples And Places) *''The art of Palmyra'', Thames and Hudson, London, 1976; Westview Press, Boulder, 1976. (Studies in Ancient Art and Archaeology) *''Parthian art'', Elek, London, 1977. (Elek Archaeology and Anthropology) *''Greece and Italy in the classical world: Acta of the XI International Congress of Classical Archaeology eld inLondon, 3–9 September 1978, under the sponsorship of the British Academy'', British Academy for the International Association for Classical Archaeology, 1979. (Editor with J.N. Coldstream). *''How to recognize Roman art'', Macdonald Educational, London, 1979. *''The Parthian period'',

Brill Brill may refer to: Places * Brielle (sometimes "Den Briel"), a town in the western Netherlands * Brill, Buckinghamshire, a village in England * Brill, Cornwall, a small village to the west of Constantine, Cornwall, UK * Brill, Wisconsin, an un ...

, Leiden, 1986. (Iconography of Religions. Section 14, Iran; Fasc. 3) *"Parthian cultural elements at Roman Palmyra", in ''

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

'', No. 22 (1987), pp. 19–28. *"Greek and non-Greek interaction in the art and architecture of the Hellenistic East" in

Amélie Kuhrt Amélie Kuhrt (23 September 1944 – 2 January 2023) was a British historian and specialist in the history of the ancient Near East. Kuhrt was educated at King's College London, University College London and SOAS. Professor Emerita at Univer ...

& Susan Sherwin-White (Eds.), ''Hellenism in the East'',

Duckworth Duckworth may refer to: * Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth'' * Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales'' * Duckworth Books Duckworth Books, originally Gerald Duckworth and Co ...

, London, 1987, pp. 134–162.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colledge, Malcolm 1939 births 2015 deaths 20th-century British archaeologists 21st-century British archaeologists Academics of Queen Mary University of London Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge British scientists with disabilities Contributors to the Oxford Classical Dictionary People educated at Dulwich College People from Croydon People with Huntington's disease