Roger Howell (1940 – 2024)
The British School at Athens mourns the passing of archaeologist Roger Howell.
Roger Howell arrived from Birmingham University in the 1962–63 session and until 1977 spent most of every session in Greece, except for 1965–66 in Bulgaria. He made major contributions to the study of Middle Helladic pottery, working on the School excavations at Lefkandi and the Unexplored Mansion at Knossos and assisting Sylvia Benton in Ithaca with the study and re-organisation of the pre-War dig material. In 1967–68, when he was the Macmillan Student, he did reconnaissance in the Peneios Valley and he took part in a resulting rescue dig.
In 1969 he joined the University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition, working on the dig team at Nichoria (1969–1975) and also serving as its year-round representative, responsible for the dig house, records, finds and visitors outside the digging and study seasons and performing a vital liaison role between the Greek and American bodies involved.
He published a short, sensible survey, ‘The Origins of the Middle Helladic Culture’, for R.A. Crossland & A. Birchall (eds), Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean and produced two exemplary chapters on the Middle Helladic at Nichoria, a major element of the report (vol. II, 1992). With Mervyn Popham’s encouragement he undertook to publish the Middle Helladic pottery from Lefkandi, but writing came hard to him and he only produced a first draft. The report was completed for publication by Oliver Dickinson with full acknowledgement (Annual 115, 2020).
Howell’s other project, from the beginning, was survey work in Arcadia. For this he had the great and unusual advantage that he was a country boy, raised on his mother’s old farm in Gloucestershire. Undoubtedly his ability to talk to country people in their own language both figuratively and literally (he soon had fluent Greek) produced information others would have missed.
In 1976 he was appointed the first Knossos Fellow but for personal reasons he returned to England for good in 1977. He was active in Gloucestershire archaeology and excavated a site called Lower Hazel.
During the junta dictatorship (1967–1974) Roger was moved to protest when the Russians marched on Prague. He and Oliver Dickinson joined a demonstration outside the Soviet embassy. When the junta collapsed in July 1974 it was Roger who relayed the news to the Nichoria dig house. He had heard it of course in the kapheneion.
Roger was a cheering presence around the School, unfailingly helpful and often raising a laugh in one or both languages. He was much loved.
– an obituary written by Oliver Dickinson