William Childs

Position
Professor Emeritus
Bio/Description

Profile

William Childs’ particular interest lies in the eastern Mediterranean. The department began excavations under his direction at the small village of Polis Chrysochous on the northwest shore of Cyprus in 1983. The project’s main objective was to locate the city that had produced noteworthy and rich tombs that had been sporadically excavated for over a hundred years by European expeditions and local treasure hunters. Literary sources record two nearby cities: Marion, the seat of an archaic kingdom destroyed by Ptolemy I Soter in 312 BCE, and Arsinoe, founded by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 270s B.C.E. The excavations have uncovered an archaic and a classical sanctuary, large sections of the 4th-century B.C.E. city wall, part of what may be an archaic palace, a large Roman building of Augustan and early imperial date, and two early Christian to Byzantine basilicas.

Education

Ph.D., Princeton University, 1971

Selected Publications

City of Gold: The Archaeology of Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus, coedited with Joanna S. Smith and J. Michael Padgett (Princeton University Art Museum and Yale University Press, 2012).

“The Human Animal: The East and Greece,” in The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art, ed. J. Michael Padgett (Princeton University Art Museum, 2003).

L’urbanisme à Chypre, d’aprés les fouilles de l’Université de Princeton à Marion (Polis Chrysochous),” in La naissance de la ville dans l’antiquité, ed. M. Reddé et al. (De Boccard, 2003).

“Early Greek Bronze Plaques in Princeton,” The Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 60 (2001).

“Princeton Excavations at Polis Chrysochous, 1994–1997: Interim Report,” Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (1999).

Platon, les images et l’art grec du IVe siècle avant J.C.,” Révue archéologique (1994).

“The Stone Sculpture of Marion: A Preliminary Assessment,” in Cypriote Stone Sculpture: Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Cypriote Studies, Brussels–Liège, 17–19 May, 1993 (A. G. Leventis Foundation and Vrije universiteit Brussel–Université de Liège, 1994).

“Herodotos, Archaic Chronology, and the Temple of Apollo at Delphi,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 108 (1993).

Fouilles de Xanthos, vol. 8, Le monument des Néréides: Le décor sculpté, coauthored with Pierre Demargne (Klincksieck, 1989).

The City-Reliefs of Lycia (Princeton University Press, 1978).

Field(s)
Classical Archaeology
Home Department and Other Affiliations
Art & Archaeology
Hellenic Studies