More about Jack Davis

After earning his PhD at the University of Cincinnati in 1977, Davis joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he remained until 1993, when he returned to Cincinnati as Blegen Professor, the position he currently holds.  In the 1980s, he held visiting positions at Northwestern University and (twice) at the University of Cambridge (Faculty of Classics and Fitzwilliam College).  From 2007 to 2012 he was Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, successfully steering this flagship institution through a particularly challenging period; he later served on the Advisory Council of the University of Athens (2012-16).  He has received many awards and distinctions, including appointments as Joukowsky Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America (2004-05), and Gray Lecturer at Cambridge (2012), and receiving, together with Sharon Stocker, the Premio Giuseppe Sciacca in Archaeology (2016).

Davis is one of the world’s foremost archaeologists of prehistoric Greece. He has directed or co-directed projects on Keos, in the Nemea Valley, at Pylos, and in Albania. Since 2015 he has been codirecting with Sharon Stocker renewed excavations at the Palace of Nestor in Messenia; recent finds, especially the intact grave of a Mycenean warrior from c. 1500 BCE, have brought this excavation international attention.  Alongside his work uncovering and publishing ancient sites, Davis has made major contributions to the scholarship on the history and archaeology of Ottoman and early modern Greece as well as the history of the discipline of Classical archaeology, in particular its relationship to nationalist movements in the Balkans and its reactions to paradigm shifts within anthropology and art history.  Recent publications include Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2007); Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? (ASCSA, 2013), edited with N. Vogeikoff-Brogan; Mycenaean Wall-Painting in Context (Paris and Athens, 2015), edited with H. Brecoulaki and S. Stocker; and The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project: A Retrospective (ASCSA, 2017), edited with John Bennet.