On the Fascination of Objects

Sir John Boardman is one of the foremost experts on ancient Greek art. Having served as Assistant Director of the British School at Athens between 1952 and 1955, he was Assistant Keeper at the Ashmolean Museum and later Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the University of Oxford between 1978 and his retirement in 1994. His many publications include the volumes on Greek Sculpture and Athenian Black and Red Figure vases for Thames and Hudson's World of Art series. He continues his research at the Beazley Archive, concentrating on the history of gem collections. Andrew Parkin is Keeper of Archaeology for the Great North Museum with a background is in both archaeology and education. His research interests include the archaeology of Ancient Greek religion, in particular Greek temple architecture and the questions of its origins and potential significance, votive deposition in Greek sanctuaries and elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world and the Classical tradition in the 18th and 19th centuries. Sally Waite is a teaching fellow in Classics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne with particular research interests in Greek and Etruscan art. She leads a number of projects researching and cataloguing Greek and Etruscan objects held in museum collections in the north of England.