Phyllis Williams Lehmann, 91, Archaeologist of Samothrace, Dies (Published 2004)
- ️https://www.nytimes.com/by/margalit-fox
- ️Sat Oct 16 2004
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
- Oct. 16, 2004
Phyllis Williams Lehmann, an archaeologist and art historian known for reuniting the hand of one of the icons of Western art, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, with two of its long-lost fingers, died on Sept. 29 at her home in Haydenville, Mass. She was 91.
The cause was congestive heart failure, according to Smith College, where Dr. Lehmann taught for more than 30 years.
Dr. Lehmann was an authority on the monuments and architecture of Samothrace, a remote, mountainous island in the north Aegean. The island was considered crucial in the development of the art and architecture of the Hellenistic period, which lasted from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. until the mid-first century B.C.
Samothrace was the center of one of the most famous mystery cults of Greek antiquity; its rituals were carried out in the group of imposing buildings known as the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, erected between the fourth and the second centuries B.C. The first of these structures to be built in marble was dedicated by Alexander's father, Philip II. Alexander's successors also erected monuments in the sanctuary.
As a result, the ruins at Samothrace have been of continuing interest to archaeologists, who have excavated there since the 1860's. Dr. Lehmann, who first visited the island in 1938, did her early work there with her husband, the archaeologist Karl Lehmann. She was assistant field director of the excavation from 1948 to 1960 and acting director from 1960 to 1965, and she remained closely involved with Samothrace for the rest of her career. A member of the Smith faculty from 1946 to 1978, she was dean of the college from 1965 to 1970.
Phyllis Williams was born Nov. 30, 1912, in Brooklyn. She received a bachelor's degree from Wellesley in 1934, and for the next two years worked at the Brooklyn Museum as an assistant in charge of the Classical collection. In 1936, she began her graduate work at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, which ran the excavation on Samothrace. She received her Ph.D. in 1943, and married Mr. Lehmann, the excavation's director, the next year. He died in 1960. No immediate family members survive.