Furumark, Arne

Date born: 1903

Place born:

Date died: 1982

Place died:

Archaeologist, specialist in late Aegean Bronze Age art; professor at Uppsala University 1952-70. Furumark's major work, The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery appeared in 1941. It remains the standard work on the subject. After World War II, his innovative research into the prehistory of Italy was published in 1947 as Det Äldsa Italien. He excavated Cyprus 1947-48 (at Sinda). In 1950 his "Settlement at Ialysos and Aegean History c. 1550-1400 BC," was published. He was director of the Swedish Institute in Athens, 1956-57. Furumark returned to Cypriot excavations 1962-63.

Furumark employed Ventri's desciphering of Linear B for his own work; he was one of the first. Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery made use of formal shape typologies to date the pottery. "Furumark" 1 through 333 is used internationally in the description of Mycenean and Minoan pottery.

Home Country: Sweden

Sources: Hägg, Robin. "Furumark, Arne." Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, p. 476; Furumark, Arne, and Adelman, Charles M. Swedish Excavations at Sinda, Cyprus: Excavations Conducted by Arne Furumark 1947-1948. Stockholm: Paul Åströms Förlag, 2003.

Bibliography: [complete writings:] Hägg, Robin. "The published writings of Arne Furumark: A bibliography." in Arne Furumark dedicata. Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae Series in quarto. Opuscula Atheniensia VIII (1968): 213-17; The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery. Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets, historie och antikvitets akademien,1941; The Mycenaean Pottery, Analysis and Classification. Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets, historie och antikvitets akademien, 1941;[those two previous volumes appearing again, with new plates, as] Mycenaean Pottery. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Athen. Stockholm: s.n, 1972-1992.