73 Facts About Panagiotis Kavvadias

Panagiotis Kavvadias was responsible for the excavation of ancient sites in Greece, including Epidaurus in Argolis and the Acropolis of Athens, as well as archaeological discoveries on his native island of Kephallonia.

Panagiotis Kavvadias played a role in the extensive reconstruction of the site by the architect and engineer Nikolaos Balanos.

Panagiotis Kavvadias oversaw the opening of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, organised its first collections, and wrote some of its first catalogues.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's career saw significant modernisation in the practice of archaeology in Greece, and he reformed and professionalised the Archaeological Service.

Panagiotis Kavvadias created further discontent among the Archaeological Society of Athens by reducing its role in favour of the governmental Archaeological Service.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's family had been prominent during the, the period of Venetian occupation which lasted from 1500 until the French conquest of 1797.

Panagiotis Kavvadias studied philology at the National University of Athens, and was awarded a scholarship by the Greek government for postgraduate study at the University of Munich.

Panagiotis Kavvadias later credited Brunn as a great influence on his own archaeological practice.

Panagiotis Kavvadias followed a course in epigraphy at the College de France in Paris under Paul Foucart, a French epigrapher later credited as "the doyen of our field" by the classical archaeologist Salomon Reinach, and studied in Berlin, London and Rome.

One of his first postings was to the excavations of the French School at Athens on the island of Delos, which had been running since 1873: he was there in 1882, working alongside Reinach, who later wrote that Panagiotis Kavvadias had seemed "full of enthusiasm and ambition".

The first major excavations Panagiotis Kavvadias led personally were at Epidaurus in Argolis, which began in March 1881.

Panagiotis Kavvadias handed over responsibility for the site to his protege Valerios Stais, but continued both to work at the site and publish the results of its excavation until his death in 1928.

Panagiotis Kavvadias excavated frequently around Kephallonia, aiming to discover so-called 'Homeric' sites and remains of Odysseus's Ithaca.

Panagiotis Kavvadias made his first excavations on the acropolis of the island of Same, near the island known in modern times as Ithaca, in 1883.

Panagiotis Kavvadias excavated again at Same and Leivatho in 1899, with funding from Adriaan Goekoop, a wealthy Dutch amateur archaeologist, finding more structures on Same but none which predated the Classical period.

Panagiotis Kavvadias published the first reports of his excavations in the Government Gazette, an official publication normally used for laws and royal decrees.

In 1888, Panagiotis Kavvadias began to publish the monthly Archaeological Bulletin on behalf of the Service.

Panagiotis Kavvadias edited all of its volumes between 1885 and 1892 himself, after which publication of the journal ceased until 1915.

Panagiotis Kavvadias initiated the excavation of the Kabeirion in Boeotia in 1887, later continued by the German Archaeological Institute at Athens.

Panagiotis Kavvadias oversaw the first reconstruction of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae, excavated by Konstantinos Kourouniotis, between 1902 and 1908.

The excavations continued until 1927: Valerios Stais, whom Panagiotis Kavvadias appointed as an ephor of the Archaeological Service in 1885, joined them as a supervisor in early 1886, after Panagiotis Kavvadias's elevation to Ephor General, and became field director in 1887.

In 1896, Panagiotis Kavvadias excavated the first parts of the nearby Sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas on Mount Kynortion.

Panagiotis Kavvadias returned to Epidaurus throughout his career: in a 1929 obituary, the British archaeologist Robert Carr Bosanquet wrote that the summer excavation season there was "almost the only holiday [Panagiotis Kavvadias] permitted himself".

Panagiotis Kavvadias was more ambivalent about his work there: when showing a fellow archaeologist, Stratis Paraskeviadis, around the site, he pointed to the theatre and said "there I sacrificed and destroyed".

Kavvadias's predecessor as Ephor General of Antiquities, Panagiotis Stamatakis, had planned to complete the excavation of the Acropolis of Athens, but died suddenly in 1884 before work could commence.

Panagiotis Kavvadias therefore carried out the excavations with funding from the Archaeological Society of Athens.

In 1887, Panagiotis Kavvadias excavated the area to the east of the Erechtheion, along the East Circuit Wall to the Belvedere tower, and from the Belvedere tower to the area between the Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum.

Finally, in 1890, Panagiotis Kavvadias cleared the route onto the Acropolis from the Beule Gate.

Panagiotis Kavvadias excavated an early Christian church, as well as significant remains of Mycenaean fortification of the western side of the Acropolis near the Propylaia.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's work has been described by the archaeological historian Fani Mallouchou-Tufano as finishing "the transformation of the [Acropolis] from castle to monument".

Panagiotis Kavvadias made minor excavations in the caves on the northern side of the Acropolis during 1896 and 1897, uncovering one with what he believed to be the remains of an altar, as well as ten marble plaques with inscriptions marking them as a dedication to Apollo, who was identified by the epithet 'under the cliffs'.

The Archaeological Service, led by Panagiotis Kavvadias, commissioned the architects Francis Penrose, Josef Durm and Lucien Magne to investigate possible responses, and decided upon a partial reconstruction which would strengthen the damaged parts and replace, where necessary, ancient marble with modern.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's work was financed by the General Ephorate of Antiquities, of which Kavvadias was head, and by the Archaeological Society of Athens, of which Kavvadias was secretary.

Panagiotis Kavvadias took a centralising approach to its collection, which he composed of material from all over Greece, except for Olympia and Delphi.

Panagiotis Kavvadias produced two catalogues of its sculptures, published in 1890 and 1892, assisted by Christos Tsountas for the prehistoric material.

Panagiotis Kavvadias assisted with the planning and design of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Ottoman-ruled Crete, which opened in 1883, drawing up the plan for the museum's Neoclassical buildings in collaboration with Wilhelm Dorpfeld.

The conference has been described as a "flanking move" by Panagiotis Kavvadias to diminish the influence of the Archaeological Society in favour of the Archaeological Service: the Archaeological Society protested at the government's ownership of the conference, represented by Panagiotis Kavvadias and the Minister for Education, Emmanuel Stais.

Kavvadias's own appointment in 1879, made by Panagiotis Efstratiadis, had marked the beginning of the expansion of the Archaeological Service, raising the number of its ephors from one to two.

Panagiotis Kavvadias continued the recruitment of new ephors: by the end of his tenure, the Service had recruited over a dozen, including Habbo Gerhard Lolling and Konstantinos Kourouniotis, and established operations on the island of Crete, then an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire.

Panagiotis Kavvadias created much of the bureaucratic apparatus of the modern Archaeological Service.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was an active member of the Archaeological Society of Athens, a learned society with a significant role in organising excavations and protecting cultural heritage in Greece.

From at least 1886, when Panagiotis Kavvadias intervened on behalf of the government in an investigation into the society's financial mismanagement, he acted to increase the influence of the General Ephorate over its affairs, creating animosity between the state and the society which had become noticed and regularly remarked upon in the press by 1888.

Panagiotis Kavvadias intensified his efforts to gain control of the society in 1894, using his own allies in the press and within the society to attack its secretary, Stefanos Koumanoudis.

In December 1894, elections were held for the society's officers: Koumanoudis was re-elected as secretary, but resigned in protest after one of Panagiotis Kavvadias's allies was appointed to the council.

Panagiotis Kavvadias initiated the drafting in 1895 of a new constitution for the society, which expanded its sphere of operations and made the Crown Prince of Greece, Constantine, its president.

Panagiotis Kavvadias oversaw the society's move to new premises in 1899, and wrote a history of it to commemorate the occasion.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was unable to prevent the export of significant antiquities, such as the Aineta aryballos and a series of funerary plaques, painted by Exekias, sold illegally to the German archaeologist Gustav Hirschfeld by the art dealer Anastasios Erneris in 1873.

Panagiotis Kavvadias has been credited with shaping Law 2646 of 1899, subtitled On Antiquities.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was known for his determination to oppose the export of antiquities: Reinach wrote in his obituary of the "fever of confiscations" that Panagiotis Kavvadias launched.

However, Reinach judged that his efforts "produced hardly any useful effects", pointing to an 1886 case in which Panagiotis Kavvadias seized a group of fake terracotta plaques, which were being exported from Athens to Paris wrapped in pages from a journal with only a single subscriber in Athens, a merchant by the name of Lambros.

Lambros had influence with King George of Greece, and had a relative who was a tutor to the future King Constantine I; Panagiotis Kavvadias therefore abandoned the case.

Panagiotis Kavvadias dismissed the founder and director of the museum, Achilleus Postolakas, and accused him of complicity in the theft.

Panagiotis Kavvadias dismissed Ioannis Svoronos, Postolakas's deputy, and attempted to prosecute the French buyers who had attempted to purchase Raftoupoulos's stolen antiquities.

Panagiotis Kavvadias came under pressure from within the government, and the Minister for Education advised him to step down.

Panagiotis Kavvadias asked the board of the Archaeological Society for temporary leave from his role as secretary, which was granted.

Panagiotis Kavvadias left for Vienna, and subsequently settled in Paris.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's downfall was met by protests from many of the foreign schools, who had benefitted from his liberal attitudes towards their activities.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's duties were given to the archaeologist Gabriel Byzantinos, who was shortly afterwards replaced by Vasileios Leonardos, the director of Athens's Epigraphical Museum.

Panagiotis Kavvadias regained his professorship at Athens, which he would hold until 1922, and became chairman of the Archaeological Board, which he remained until his resignation in 1920.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was appointed as one of its founding professors, alongside Tsountas, Svoronos, Adamantiou, Soteriadis, Kourouniotis, Sokratis Kougeas, Antonios Keramopoulos and Politis, who was elected as the school's director by the other professors.

In 1920, Panagiotis Kavvadias began work on a corpus of Greek mosaics, funded by the Greek government and the Union Academique Internationale, which remained unfinished at the time of his death.

Panagiotis Kavvadias returned to Epidaurus for the final time in June 1928.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was notable in the study of epigraphy, a field of archaeology closely linked with the identity of the nineteenth-century Greek state.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was responsible for the recovery and study of the Antikythera mechanism under Valerios Stais from 1900 to 1902.

The rapid expansion of the Archaeological Service between 1883 and 1908, nearly all of which Panagiotis Kavvadias oversaw, has been described as "the beginning of a new era in [its] history".

Several archaeologists hired as ephors under Panagiotis Kavvadias became significant figures in Greek archaeology: Kourouniotis, for example, would be director of the National Archaeological Museum and serve two terms as director of the Archaeological Service.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was recognised for his support of Athens's foreign archaeological institutes, which multiplied in number and activity during his tenure.

Panagiotis Kavvadias had a particularly warm relationship with Charles Waldstein, director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 1889 until 1893.

Panagiotis Kavvadias's contemporary Bosanquet wrote that his patronage of the foreign schools was a significant factor in promoting the "study and preservation of his country's heritage".

Panagiotis Kavvadias had two sons: Alexander Polycleitos Cawadias, a medical doctor known for his work on intersexuality, and Epameinondas Panagiotis Kavvadias, an admiral in the Hellenic Navy who served as its commander during the Second World War.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was elected an honorary member of the British Society of Antiquaries in 1893, a corresponding member of the French Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1894, a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cambridge in 1904, as well as an honorary professorship at Leipzig University.

Panagiotis Kavvadias was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Medicine.