Knapp_2

INTRODUCTION TO JAMES D. MUHLY’S KEYNOTE ADDRESS

After thirty years of teaching Ancient History at the University of Pennsylvania, James David Muhly is about to retire and move to his second home, Athens, Greece. But ‘retire’ is not quite the right term here, since Jim is moving to take up the Directorship of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, an event which is bound to disrupt prevailing patterns, one way or another. However, as many of you will also know — whether you agree is another matter entirely — this is a move that makes a great deal of sense, because Jim Muhly is and always has been as much involved in classics as in ancient history, archaeometallurgy, or assyriology. Those of you who have had the opportunity to read or consult Copper and Tin, or the even more riveting Supplement to Copper and Tin, will have no doubt of his disciplinary, or should I say interdisciplinary standing. In addition to Copper and Tin, over the past 27 years, beginning in 1970, James Muhly has co-edited three other books and written approximately 100 articles for various scholarly books and journals. As a postgraduate student who early developed a keen interest in the Muhly interdisciplinary style, I can say that I have read all of these studies, and somehow have remained intellectually intact! (Well, on second thought, you may not all agree with that...) Jim and I, along with his wife Polly, even managed to produce an article together during our mutual Fulbright year on Cyprus — of course it took the entire year to write a 30-page article we could agree on, but never mind! No, seriously now, I don’t want to take up the whole evening here. But I cannot end without a final anecdote or two. As most of you will know very well, Jim is very good with anecdotes, and it is appropriate every now and then to repay him in kind! Working on my Ph.D. thesis back in the late 1970s, I wrote a letter to Professor Muhly, trying to explain the essence of my thesis, which dealt with the MC III-LC I period on Cyprus. The brief reply (at least he did reply) sharply remonstrated that White Slip II pottery had nothing to do with the MC III-LC I period, and nor did the Amarna tablets to which I also had made reference! What Jim didn’t know (and what Malcolm Wiener evidently still fails to appreciate) is that chronology is not something I get too upset about! I prefer to think in terms of longue durées or ritual time, not real time: we have enough people fixated on real time... The second and final anecdote before I set Muhly loose on “Re-reading Kantor” occurs a couple of years later at an American Oriental Society meeting in Boston, in 1981 I believe, over breakfast. Jim asked me if I would be interested in joining him and a University of Pennsylvania team — with a team I would put together at U.C. Berkeley, to work with the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University on the excavations at the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age site of Tel Gerisa (directed by Ze’ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology). Jim said I needed to get my hands dirty to gain some credibility in the field. Little did I know then how much this smacked of the pot calling the kettle black! I only learned that the following summer, when I joined the consortium in Tel Aviv, Jim being on his usual, annual sabbatical leave from the University of Pennsylvania. Well, the first morning, and every morning thereafter, I was up on the tell by 6:00 AM, getting my hands as dirty as you please. But where was Muhly...? I cast my eyes over the two hectares of Tel Gerisa and saw such figures as Ora Negbi, Anson Rainey, and Sariel Shalev... but I saw no familiar lanky form, no beret, nothing... And then, shortly before 8:00 AM, Jim would stroll up onto the tell, walk around to each excavation area, and look at the special finds, utter “...umm, metal” and walk back down! Now, there, I thought is the way to do archaeology! But, to be fair, this did not happen every day ... no, on the other days Jim drove into Jerusalem to use the libraries or to go for a swim at the American Hotel...

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A. Bernard KNAPP

Now, in all seriousness, I must desist, but not before I present Jim with a copy of a new book I’ve written, dedicated to him, and kept a secret thanks to the collusion of Eric Cline and Diane Harris-Cline, our generous hosts and the organisers of this meeting. Jim, with respect and friendship, and with my sincere thanks for your support over the years, and especially for your scholarship, I’d like to present you with a copy of this new book on the archaeology of Late Cypriot society... A. Bernard KNAPP