page_title: Arthur Evans
section_title: Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum
hierarchical_section_title: Arthur Evans / Career / Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum
context_page_description: Sir Arthur John Evans FRS FBA FREng was an English archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilisation in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on the structures and artefacts found there and throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Evans found that he needed to distinguish the Minoan civilisation from Mycenaean Greece. Evans was also the first to define Cretan scripts Linear A and Linear B, as well as an earlier pictographic writing.
  Although not a professional statesman or soldier, and probably never a paid agent of the government, he nevertheless negotiated or played a role in negotiating unofficially with foreign powers in the Balkans and Middle East. He was, on request of the revolutionary organisations of the peoples of the Balkans, a significant player in the formation of the nation of Yugoslavia.
context_section_description: Evans and Margaret moved back to Oxford, renting a house there in January 1883. This period of unemployment was the only one of his life; he employed himself finishing up his Balkan studies. He completed his articles on Roman roads and cities there. It was suggested that he apply to a new Professorship of Classical Archaeology at Oxford. When he found out that Jowett and Newton were among the electors, he decided not to apply. He wrote to Freeman that to confine archaeology to classics was an absurdity. Instead he and Margaret travelled to Greece, seeking out Heinrich Schliemann at Athens. Margaret and Sophia had a long visit for several hours, during which Evans examined the Mycenaean antiquities at hand with Heinrich.
  Meanwhile, Ashmolean Museum, an adjunct of Oxford University, was in a chaotic state of transition. It had been a natural history museum, but the collections had been transferred to other museums. The lower floor housed some art and archaeology, but the upper floor was being used for university functions. John Henry Parker, appointed the first keeper in 1870, had the task of trying to manage it. His efforts to negotiate with the art collector C. Drury E. Fortnum, over housing his extensive collection, were being undercut by university administrators. In January 1884, Parker died. The museum was in the hands of its assistant keepers, one of whom, Edward Evans (no relation), was to be Evans's executive during Evans's extended absences.
  The strategy for the museum now was to convert it to an art and archaeology museum, expanding the remaining collections . In November 1883, Fortnum wrote to Evans asking for his assistance in locating some letters in the Bodleian Library that would help to validate a noted ring in his collection; he did so on the advice of John Evans of the Society of Antiquaries. Unable to find the letters, Arthur Evans suggested Fortnum visit Oxford. Fortnum in fact was becoming dissatisfied with rivals for his collection, the South Kensington Museum, because of their "lack of a properly informed and competent person as keeper." Evans had the right qualifications and took the position of keeper at the Ashmolean when it was offered.
  In 1884, therefore, Evans, at the age of 34, was appointed Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. He held a grand inauguration at which he outlined his planned changes, publishing it as The Ashmolean as a Home of Archaeology in Oxford. Already the great frontage building had been erected. Evans took it firmly in the direction of being an archaeology museum. He insisted the artefacts be transferred back to the museum, negotiated for and succeeded in acquiring Fortnum's collections, later gave his father's collections to the museum, and finally, bequeathed his own Minoan collections, not without the intended effect. Today it has the finest Minoan assemblages outside Crete.  He also persuaded Fortnum to donate £10,000 to build the extensive rooms behind the impressive façade, buildings which have only recently been demolished to make way for the new Ashmolean Museum.
  Evans gave the Ilchester Lectures for 1884 on the Slavonic conquest of Illyricum, which remained unpublished.
caption: The Ashmolean Museum
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