File c1f14 - Jenkins, R. J. H. & Megaw, H.

Romilly Jenkins specialized in Byzantine and Modern Greek scholarship, authoring many works on the subject. He began his studies at the British School in Athens in 1933 becoming assistant director and then a member of the Board Managing Committee in 1936. That same year he became Lewis Gibb Lecturer of Modern Greek at the University of Cambridge. Although he worked for the British Foreign Service during World War II, he held the Cambridge post until 1946 when he accepted the Koraes professorship of modern Greek and Byzantine history, language and literature at King’s College in London, serving also as honorary professor of classical archaeology. In 1960 he moved to the Dumbarton Oaks Institute in Washington, D.C. where he was a professor of history and Byzantine literature.

Arthur Hubert Stanley Megaw, born in Dublin, never had an academic post at a university, but his work during 75 years of excavations and restorations, particularly in Cyprus, as well as his writings, had an important influence on Byzantine studies. He prepared for a career in architecture at Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge, earning a MA, but it was archaeology that captured his interest. “Peter,” as he was known to friends and colleagues, began archaeological work at the British School of Archaeology in Athens in 1932; when Cyprus became independent in 1935, he became director of the department of antiquities in Cyprus, at age 26, a post he held till 1960. In 1951 he received the honor of Commander of the British Empire. From 1960 to 1968 he was director of the British School at Athens, then spent many years between the Harvard Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C. and the Byzantine Institute of America in Istanbul, where he was acting field director.