| Administrative History | William Moir Calder was born in Edinkillie, Morayshire on 2 July 1881, son of George MacBeth Calder, farmer. He graduated MA from Aberdeen University in 1903, BA from Oxon in 1907 and from 1908 - 1913 was Hulme Research Student in Brasenose College. He held the post of Hulme Professor of Greek at Manchester University from 1913 - 1930, and Professor of Greek in Edinburgh University from 1930 to 1951. In 1955 he was awarded the FBE for his services to Greek scholarship. He died in Elgin on 17 August 1960. For biographic details see Calder's entry in Who Was Who 1951 - 1960, and his obituary in the Aberdeen University Review, vol. 38 (1959 - 60), p. 586.
During his career Calder published many works on the antiquities of Asia Minor. His resrach there was initially funded by Aberdeen University's Robert Wilson Trust, which appointed Calder travelling fellow in 1911 and reappointed him in 1913; this research was interrupted by the war, but many of Calder's pre-war finds were published together with results from his later trips in the collection 'Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua' (Ancient Monuments of Asia Minor, MAMA), which contains the results of investigations in the areas of ancient Phrygia, Lycania and Caria (in modern Turkey) funded by the American Society for Archaeological Research in Asia Minor between 1925 and 1934. The first expedition to eastern Phrygia in the spring of 1925 was made by Calder, R.K. Law, of St John's College, Oxford and P.L. McDougall, of Manchester University. During the next ten years other classical scholars joined the excavation team, and their work was published in eight volumes during the period 1928 - 1962.
The expeditions in which Calder took part were:
1924: Calder, followed by W. Buckler and C. Cox
1925: Calder, K. Law, P.L. McDougall
1926: Calder, Buckler, Cox
1928: Calder, A.P. Sinker, A. Maclehose
1929: Calder, Buckler, W.K.C. Guthrie
1930: Calder, Guthrie, John Paton of Grandholm and family
1932: Calder, Guthrie, Süleyman Gökce
1933: Calder, Buckler and family, L.I. Higby, J.C. Watson
1934: Calder, Higby, A.B. Birnie
1936: Calder, Higby
1951: Calder, I.W. MacPherson
1954: Calder, M. Balance
MAMA:
'Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua', edoted by William Moir Calder and others, 8 volumes (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1928 - 1962), I, IV, VI, VII and VIII (sections 1-9). This publication contains further details on the American Society for Archaeological Research in Asia Minor and the results of Calder's investigations. However, some of his photographs of inscriptions are published in other volumes or series (e.g. Tituli Asiae Minoris).
The volumes of MAMA published before the Second World War were generously illustrated; hoever volumes VII and VIII were less lavishly produced. There are a large number of photographs and notebook transcriptions of inscriptions in this collection which have never been published, although the vast majority of the texts probably have been. The unpublished photographs are potentially of considerable scholarly value. The negatives tend to be referred to as in two sequences - R or K plus a number. Several references in letters and notes indicate that these abbreviations refer to cameras (The camera provided by the Rockerfeller family and a Kodak camera) and the numbers to the time exposure used.
In addition to the importance of the inscriptions themselves, the diaries and some of the letters and photographs provide very interesting background information on the contemporary situation in Turkey and on the circumstances of epigraphic endeavour in the inter-war period, when political considerations constantly impinged on the work and on the local assistants and contacts on whom the European scholars relied. |
| Custodial History | The papers were deposited by Calder's family in 1961, after his death. There are also in the collection some papers which belonged to William Buckler, which were forwarded to Calder by Buckler's widow after his death in 1952. In 1986, the archive was in the custody of the Anthropological Museum at Marischal College before being transferred to the University archives. |
| Description | This deposit contains documents relating to the fieldwork carried out by Calder and his colleagues mainly under the auspices of the American Society for Archaeological Research in Asia Minor between 1924 and 1954. These include diaries, field notebooks and research drafts, correspondence, photographs (both prints and negatives), maps and squeezes. Calder's diaries of the various expeditions, which mainly record preparations, travel, meetings with other scholars and travellers, background information and notes on local customs in Turkey. The field notebooks mainly record and transcribe the inscriptions found, with reference numbers to photographs and squeezes and in some cases to publication numbers; while there are various notes and drafts produced by Calder in the process of assessing the material and preparing it for publication, together with correspondence with Ramsay and other scholars on the interpretation of some of the incriptions. The inscriptions themselves are recorded in impressions or squeezes and in photographs as well as by the transcriptions in the notebooks. There is also a large collection of maps of Asia Minor and surrounding areas; many rf these are annotated to record find spots, local vegetation or mineral deposits and the like, while some are original hand-drawn maps prepared for the publication of Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (MAMA). While most of this material was subsequently published in MAMA, some of the inscriptions wre published elsewhere and some are believed to be unpublished. .
In addition to the MAMA material, the collection also includes squeezes and other material from Cyprus and other sites, and squeezes and related material evidently collected by Calder himself between 1908 and 1913, prior to his involvement with the MAMA project; much but not all of this material was later published in MAMA.
The photographic collection is mainly of inscribed stones, but also includes images of countryside, towns and people, many depicting the political unrest in Asia Minor at this time, as well as members of the various expeditions. There is also a great deal of incidental information about the area, its customs and people contained in the diaries and correspondence.
The collection also includes a small number of Calder's personal papers, photographs and correspondence unrelated to his epigraphical interests.
Transcription: as the catalogue does not accept input in the Greek or Turkish alphabets, place names and quoted inscriptions are entered in roman characters and without most diacritics. |