George Maxim Anossov Hanfmann
George Maxim Anossov Hanfmann was born in Lithuania in 1911 and studied classical philology, art history, and archaeology at Jena, Munich, and Berlin. He received two Ph.D's. in classical archaeology, one from the University of Berlin and, after immigrating to the United States, another from Johns Hopkins University. He came to Harvard as a junior Fellow in 1935 and rose from instructor in 1938 to Full Professor in 1956. He was the curator of Ancient Art at the Fogg Museum from 1946-1974 during which time the collections increased significantly with the acquisition of the David M. Robinson collection, the Frederick M Watkins collection, and the long-term loan of the Arthur S. Dewing Collection. Professor Hanfmann was the organizer of major exhibitions of ancient art, including "Ancient Art in American Private Collections", "The Beauty of Ancient Art (in the Norbert Schimmel Collection), and Master Bronzes from the Classical World". He was John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology from 1971 until his retirement in 1982. He was the author of more than three hundred scholarly books, articles, and reviews, which reflect the wide range of his interests. Prof. Hanfmann was a consummate teacher, committed not only to his graduate students, but also to undergraduate education. He often taught the first part of Fine Arts 13, the annual survey of art history. His courses were always new experiences for him as well as for his students, as he disliked giving the same lecture twice. In order to train the eye and to emphasize the importance of direct observation, as well as to expose his students to original works of art, Professor Hanfmann made good use of the museum collections as subjects for writing assignments. Professor Hanfmann became interested in Sardis in the early 1940s, when a senior colleague at Harvard, George H. Chase, requested his collaboration in publishing the pottery recovered at Sardis during a Princeton excavation in the early part of the century. By 1953 Professor Hanfmann had decided that, given the loss of records and a large part of the pottery when the expedition house and storage rooms at Sardis were destroyed by Circassians in 1919 during the advance of Greek troops into Asia Minor, "a short summer campaign of small scope" might clarify some of the questions about the stratigraphy of pottery in occupation deposits. In 1957 he founded the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis with A. Henry Detweiler of Cornell, under the auspices of the American Schools of Oriental Research. From 1958 to 1976, assisted by his wife, Ilse Hanfmann, he led the annual seasons of excavation, research, and major reconstruction at the site of Sardis and at Bin Tepe, the ancient cemetery of the Lydian kings.
As Crawford H. Greenewalt wrote of Professor Hanfmann, "Staff members were made to feel, regardless of their positions and institutional backgrounds, equal sharers in an exciting enterprise. For all who participated the variety of ancient monuments, cultural phases, and analytical techniques that Professor Hanfmann chose to explore made Sardis a rich learning experience. He encouraged the personal growth of all staff members, current and past; and forwarded the careers of many, including several Turkish archaeologists who had their start at Sardis." Professor Hanfmann was elected to many learned societies including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; the Society of Antiquaries; the British Academy; the Istituto di Studi Etruschi; the German and Austrian Archaeological Institutes; the Akademie der Wissenschaftern und der Literatur; and the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France. In 1978 he received the Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America for distinguished archaeological achievement. Professor Hanfmann died in 1986.
