Southern Highlands Branch Meeting 2025-2

“The  Curator and the Cats: The Curious Story of Professor James Stewart and the Archaeology of Ancient Cyprus in Australia”

Dr Craig Barker
Head, Public Engagement
Chau Chak Wing Museum
University of Sydney

Date: Thursday, 20 March 2025, 6.30 – 7.30 pm AEDT
Venue: RSL Mittagong, Carrington Room
Entry: Members, $5; Non-members, $10 (please note: cashless payments only)
All are welcome

Summary: James Stewart (1913–1962) is one of the most important figures in the development of academic archaeology in Australia. Sydney-born and Cambridge-trained he was the first Australian to direct legal archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean and one of the 20th century’s pre-eminent archaeologists of ancient Cyprus. Along with A.D. Trendall in 1947 he founded the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney: Australia’s first university department dedicated to teaching the subject. From his cat-filled family Victorian Tudor-style manor house outside of Bathurst (now known as Abercrombie House), he made Australia a centre of the study of the ancient world in the 1950s in conditions difficult for students and researchers.

From excavations of Bronze Age chamber tombs in Cyprus to prisoner of war camps in Germany during WWII, to the founding of a fledging department of archaeology at the University of Sydney, to academic acclaim, curator of the Nicholson Museum and conflict with University administration his short life was full. At once charming and warm and also cunning and deceptive, Stewart stamped his mark on the way the subject was researched and taught for decades.

This illustrated lecture will explore Stewart’s remarkable legacy in Cypriot archaeology, the work he achieved and was achieved in his memory, his two wives’ unrecognised contributions to the subject and the generations of Australian archaeologists who work in the Mediterranean and Near East in his wake.

Craig Barker is a Mediterranean archaeologist, museum educator and administrator. He is the Director of the Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project in Cyprus and the Head of Public Engagement at the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Craig has a PhD in Classical Archaeology from the University of Sydney and fieldwork experience in Australia, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. Craig’s research interests include theatre architecture, ancient Cyprus and perceptions of archaeology in popular culture. He has published on a wide range of Cypriot material and is currently writing a history of archaeology at the University of Sydney. He is actively involved in public archaeology, hosting ABC Radio’s Can You Dig It segment from 2015 to 2022 and is the host of the CCWM podcast Object Matters.

Share link:

Share link: