37 Facts About Athanasios Rhousopoulos

Athanasios Rhousopoulos wrote and translated numerous educational works concerning Greek history, culture and archaeology.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos played a significant role in the foundation of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, and was a prominent member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, itself an important fixture in Greek archaeology during his lifetime.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos excavated in Athens's Theatre of Dionysus as well as in the Kerameikos, where his 1863 discovery of the Grave Stele of Dexileos helped to confirm that the site was that of Athens's ancient cemetery.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos attracted controversy in the early 1870s for his criticism of the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, and of Schliemann's claim to have found artefacts from the Trojan War at the site of Hisarlik.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was renowned for his collection of ancient artefacts, particularly coins, which was considered among the most impressive private collections in Greece.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was a prominent dealer of antiquities, trading regularly with collectors, museums and society figures from around the world, and heavily involved in the illegal excavation and trafficking of ancient artefacts.

From 1865, his activities came to increasing public and official attention, particularly that of the Ephor General, Panagiotis Efstratiadis; Athanasios Rhousopoulos was fined after his illegal sale of the Aineta aryballos to the British Museum, and expelled from the Archaeological Society.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos made significant contributions to Greek epigraphy, and was a major source of artefacts for several of the world's largest museums.

Athanasios Sergiou Rhousopoulos was born in 1823, in the village of Vogatsiko, near Kastoria in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos received his early education in Constantinople and Athens.

In 1846, Konstantinos Bellios, a wealthy Greek merchant and antiquarian then living in Vienna, funded Athanasios Rhousopoulos to attend Leipzig University and the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos studied Greek literature and archaeology, before moving to the University of Gottingen, which awarded him a doctorate in 1852.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos wrote his thesis, entitled, in Ancient Greek.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos taught Greek for twenty-four years at the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School of Athens, and spent four years teaching ancient Greek civilisation at the Athens Polytechnic.

The society reformed in 1858: in 1859, Athanasios Rhousopoulos was elected to its governing council, as the only member of the council with a background in archaeology rather than philology.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was the head of publications for its first twelve issues.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos worked on categorising the materials transferred to the new museum from other institutions around Greece.

In 1868, Athanasios Rhousopoulos was moved from his professorship in Greek to one in archaeology at the University of Athens.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was unusual among Athens's early archaeological professors for not having worked for the Greek Archaeological Service.

The archaeologist and archaeological historian Yannis Galanakis has suggested that Athanasios Rhousopoulos was more likely dismissed on grounds of ill health, given that his age of 61 was relatively young, though little information about his health is available.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos has been described as "a particularly vehement critic" of Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who excavated the site of Hisarlik in various phases between 1871 and 1890.

In 1879, Athanasios Rhousopoulos examined a key that Schliemann had found at Troy, writing him what Schliemann described as "a valuable note" on its design and the symbolism of its decoration.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was particularly noted for his numismatic collection of ancient coins, which numbered over 6,000 objects by 1874.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was registered as an art dealer until 1893, though it is unclear when he began to practise.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos opened his house to invited viewers between 2pm and 5pm each day, and offered any item for sale, though commentators noted that his prices were considerably higher than those charged by other dealers in Athens, London and Paris.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos's home was often visited by high-status foreign travellers, including Emperor Pedro II of Brazil in 1876 and Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1891.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos sold several items to major European and American museums, including London's British Museum.

In 1888, Athanasios Rhousopoulos sold twenty-one vases, terracotta statues and bronze statues to the American philanthropist Jane Stanford, which would form part of the early collection of the Stanford University Museum of Art.

The archaeological historian Nikolaos Papazarkadas has written that Athanasios Rhousopoulos "was heavily involved in dubious transactions involving illegally-excavated antiquities".

In 1862, Athanasios Rhousopoulos published an article in the journal of the German Archaeological Institute at Rome on a Corinthian aryballos, now known as the Aineta aryballos, which had been excavated in Athens.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos needed to maintain good relations with Athens's art dealers, who undertook more excavations in this period than either the Archaeological Service or the closely-aligned Archaeological Society of Athens, and usually offered to sell the artefacts they uncovered to the state.

Furthermore, Athanasios Rhousopoulos was periodically a member of the appraising committee of three, and often acted as a consultant to it, further limiting Efstratiadis's ability to use the state's archaeological apparatus against him.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was fined 1,000 drachmae later in 1867 for exporting antiquities without the Ephor General's permission.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos's actions were condemned by the Minister for Education and Religious Affairs, who oversaw the Archaeological Service, and by the Archaeological Society of Athens, which expelled him at some point in the 1870s.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos married the German Louisa Murray, whom he had met while a student at Gottingen.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was known to be cosmopolitan, multilingual and well-connected in European society, particularly in German-speaking countries.

Athanasios Rhousopoulos was elected as a member of the Academie Francaise, to whom he dedicated his book Treatise on an Icon of Antigone.