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A PIONEER AND A FOUNDER: REMEMBERING IVOR NOL HUME
Last Friday, Ivor Noël Hume, who profoundly influenced the field of historical archaeology and inspired generations of students both casual and professional, passed away at 89. Over the course of his three-decade career at Colonial Williamsburg, he was a prolific and talented writer and speaker, and revered for modernizing archaeological methodology and for landmark discoveries, in particular the 17th-century Wolstenholme Towne site at Carter’s Grove.
Born and raised in London, Noël Hume had no formal training in archaeology, but he managed to turn his enthusiasm for collecting and identifying objects into a career where his talent and expertise were recognized around the world. An invitation to examine the scores of glass bottles that had been excavated during the restoration first brought him to Williamsburg in the summer of 1956, accompanied by his first wife Audrey, who was his indispensable research partner until her death in 1993.
A year later, he left his position at the Guildhall Museum in London to become Colonial Williamsburg’s new chief archaeologist. Noël Hume arrived just in time for the Fourth of July in 1957; Audrey soon joined him, after a memorable 42-hour journey from England to Virginia accompanied by Tigellinus, a giant Brazilian turtle, who flew first class in a basket, kept warm by a hot water bottle and several blankets.
Cary Carson, who first dug alongside Noël Hume as a student at Winterthur Museum and later became Director of Historical Research at Colonial Williamsburg, called him “a pioneer and a founder” for building the fledgling Archaeology Department with “a whole new level of sophistication and analysis.”
“Previously archaeology was more of a handmaiden to architectural restoration,” Carson explained. The purpose of most digging was to find building foundations, not artifacts. “Noël brought the advanced techniques being practiced in Britain to American shores,” demonstrating the promise of historical archaeology in its own right.
http://makinghistorynow.com/2017/02/a-pioneer-and-a-founder-remembering-ivor-noel-hume/
Born and raised in London, Noël Hume had no formal training in archaeology, but he managed to turn his enthusiasm for collecting and identifying objects into a career where his talent and expertise were recognized around the world. An invitation to examine the scores of glass bottles that had been excavated during the restoration first brought him to Williamsburg in the summer of 1956, accompanied by his first wife Audrey, who was his indispensable research partner until her death in 1993.
A year later, he left his position at the Guildhall Museum in London to become Colonial Williamsburg’s new chief archaeologist. Noël Hume arrived just in time for the Fourth of July in 1957; Audrey soon joined him, after a memorable 42-hour journey from England to Virginia accompanied by Tigellinus, a giant Brazilian turtle, who flew first class in a basket, kept warm by a hot water bottle and several blankets.
Cary Carson, who first dug alongside Noël Hume as a student at Winterthur Museum and later became Director of Historical Research at Colonial Williamsburg, called him “a pioneer and a founder” for building the fledgling Archaeology Department with “a whole new level of sophistication and analysis.”
“Previously archaeology was more of a handmaiden to architectural restoration,” Carson explained. The purpose of most digging was to find building foundations, not artifacts. “Noël brought the advanced techniques being practiced in Britain to American shores,” demonstrating the promise of historical archaeology in its own right.
http://makinghistorynow.com/2017/02/a-pioneer-and-a-founder-remembering-ivor-noel-hume/
Already legendary when I studied historical archaeology almost forty years ago.
