Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal

Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal tells the hidden tale behind one of the great American excavations in Greece. In the 1930s, David Robinson’s project on ancient houses became the first of its kind and fundamentally altered what classical archaeologists’ study. Alan Kaiser documents previously unknown details of the Olynthus project through lively photographs and enthusiastic letters of one of Robinson’s trench supervisors, Mary Ross Ellingson. He also reveals the plagiarism of Ellingson’s work by Robinson, and how others in the field were complicit in the theft.

This revised edition narrates the consequences of the first edition’s publication. People who knew Ellingson, Robinson, and others mentioned in the book contacted Kaiser to share with him important details he could never have known. Enough new information has come to light in archives from Canada to Greece to require a retelling of the archaeology, sexism, and scandal associated with the Olynthus excavation. Kaiser also includes never-before published photos that tell the story further in a way words cannot. And in a twist neither Ellingson nor Robinson could ever have seen coming, Kaiser reports on one last extraordinary action the book inspired, a petition to the Library of Congress to add Ellingson’s name to the two Olynthus volumes that her stolen works are in.