Loading AI tools
Australian classical archaeologist (1909–1995) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arthur Dale Trendall, AC, CMG (28 March 1909 – 13 November 1995) was a New Zealand art historian and classical archaeologist whose work on identifying the work of individual artists on Greek ceramic vessels at Apulia and other sites earned him international prizes and a papal knighthood.
Educated at the University of Otago (1926–29) and the University of Cambridge (1931–33), Trendall was professionally associated with the University of Sydney and Australian National University. He was Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Master of University House at the latter institution.[1] From 1969 until his death he was Resident Fellow at La Trobe University in Melbourne.[2]
In January 1940, with the encouragement of the Australian Army, Trendall, together with some colleagues at the University of Sydney, began to study Japanese codes. The others were the mathematicians Thomas Gerald Room and Richard Lyons and the classicist Athanasius Treweek. In May 1941 Room and Treweek attended a meeting at the Victoria Barracks in Melbourne with the Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Australian Navy, several Australian Army intelligence officers and Eric Nave, an expert Japanese cryptographer with the Royal Australian Navy. As a result it was agreed that Room's group, with the agreement of the University of Sydney, would move in August 1941 to work under Nave at the Special Intelligence Bureau in Melbourne. After the outbreak of war they were working for FRUMEL (Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne), a joint American-Australian intelligence unit, but when Lieutenant Rudolph Fabian took over command of FRUMEL and particularly when, in October 1942, FRUMEL was placed under direct control of the US Navy, civilians such as the member of Room's group were found surplus to requirements and returned to their academic posts.[3][4]
According to Oliver Taplin, Trendall "almost single-handedly ... imposed order on the more than 20,000 known red-figure vases from Sicily, South Italy, Campania and Paestum, allocating each one to an area of production and approximate date, and attributing them to individual painters or groups of painters".[5] Moreover, he was responsible for "superbly acute and well- informed observations on the subject-matter and interpretation of the vases, whether mythological, cultic, funerary, social, theatrical or artistic."[5]
In the New Years Honours of 1961, Trendall was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), in recognition of his service as "Vice-Chancellor" of the Australian National University.[6]
On 20 July 1961 he was appointed Cavaliere Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.[7]
In the Australia Day Honours of 1976, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia.[7]
In 1997 the Australian Academy of the Humanities, of which Prof. Trendall was a Foundation Fellow,[8] inaugurated the Trendall Lectures.[9] Some of those were published as printed booklets[10] and others were published online or in the Humanities Australia journal. The Trendall Lecture "alternates between an Australian and an international scholar with a research interest in classical studies"[11] and is delivered in conjunction with the conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies.
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
