David H. French (archaeologist)

David Henry French (30 May 1933 – 19 March 2017) was a British archaeologist known especially for his work in Asia Minor.^[1]

French was born on 30 May 1933 in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Having received a free place as a direct grant pupil, he was educated at Pocklington School, an independent school in Pocklington. He studied classics at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.^[2]

French was married to Elizabeth "Lisa" French (nee Wace), a noted Mycenae archaeologist, from 1959 until they divorced 1975. Together they had two daughters.^[3]

He was one of the leading archaeologists of his generation and the longest-serving director of the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA) (1968-1994) and continued to make a significant contribution to the Institute's scientific output until his death. After he was appointed to this position, he continued his previous work on Can Hasan, who provided an important overview of the Chalcolithic Period in the region and determined the transitional sequences from the Neolithic period. Among the many projects, salvage excavations at Aşvan Castle and Tille Höyük stand out. In the field of epigraphy, David French initiated a major project: the investigation of Asia Minor milestones, resulting in an unprecedented mapping of the ancient routes in Anatolia and became an important reference work.

Publications[]

Books[]

• Some problems in Macedonian prehistory (1966)
• Anatolia & the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C. (1969) (PhD thesis, Cambridge University)
• Prehistoric pottery from the area of the agricultural prison at Tiryns (with Elizabeth French) (1971)
• ‘The Early and Middle-Helladic pottery report from the 1959 excavations’ in W.D. Taylour: ‘Excavations at Ayios Stephanos' (1972)
• Notes on Prehistoric Pottery Groups from Central Greece (1972)
• ‘Migrations and Minyan pottery in Western Anatolia and the Aegean’ in R.A. Crossland, A. Birchall (eds), 'Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean. Archaeological and Linguistic Problems in Greek Prehistory. Proceedings of the First International Colloquium of Aegean Prehistory, Sheffield' (1973)
• ‘Appendix: Roads and sites in Lykaonia’ in H. von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Lykaoniens (Istanbuler Mitteilungen, Beiheft 16) (1976)
• Roman Roads and Milestones of Asia Minor 1: The Pilgrims Road (1981)
• Roman roads and milestones of Asia Minor. Fasc. 2. Part 1-2, An interim catalogue of milestones. (1988)
• The Eastern frontier of the Roman Empire : proceedings of a colloquium held at Ankara (with Chris S. Lightfoot) (1988)
• The Eastern frontier of the Roman Empire : proceedings of a colloquium held at Ankara. Part II (with Chris S. Lightfoot) (1988)
• Anatolian Iron Ages 2 : the proceedings of the second Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium held at İzmir (with Altan Çilingiroğlu) (1991)
• Anatolian iron ages 3 : the proceedings of the Third Anatolian Iron Ages colloquium held at Van (with Altan Çilingiroğlu) (1994)
• Studies in the history and topography of Lycia and Pisidia : in memoriam A.S. Hall (With Alan Hall) (1994)
• Canhasan I: stratigraphy and structures (1998)
• Roman, Late Roman and Byzantine inscriptions of Ankara : a selection (2003)
• The inscriptions of Sinope 1 (2004)
• Canhasan sites. 2, Canhasan I, the pottery (2005)
• Canhasan sites 3 : Canhasan I : the small finds (2010)
• The Greek and Latin inscriptions of Ankara (Ancyra). Vol. I, From Augustus to the end of the third century AD (with Stephen Mitchell) (2012)
• The Greek and Latin inscriptions of Ankara (Ancyra). Vol. 2. Late Roman, Byzantine and other texts (with Stephen Mitchell) (2019)

Articles[]

• Late chalcolithic pottery in north-west Turkey and the Aegean (1961)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: first preliminary report, 1961 (published 1962)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: second preliminary report, 1962 (published 1963)
• Prehistoric pottery from Macedonia and Thrace (1964)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: third preliminary report, 1963 (published 1964)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: fourth preliminary report, 1964 (published 1965)
• Prehistoric sites in the Göksu valley (1965)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: fifth preliminary report, 1965 (published 1966)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: sixth preliminary report, 1966 (published 1967)
• Excavations at Can Hasan: seventh preliminary report, 1967 (published 1968)
• Notes on site distribution in the Çumra area (1970)
• An experiment in water-sieving (1971)
• A sixteenth-century English merchant in Ankara? (1972)
• Excavations at Can Hasan III, 1969–1970 (with Gordon C Hillman; Sebastian Payne) (published 1972)
• Asvan 1968-72: the excavations (published 1973)
• Kurupınar (1973)
• Asvan Kale: the third-millennium pottery (with Svend Helms) (1973)
• The Asvan project (1973)
• Aşvan excavations: summary (with Malcolm Wagstaff) (1973)
• A study of Roman roads in Anatolia: principles and methods (1974)
• S. Quintilius Maximus, Proconsul (of Asia) (1976)

References[]

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