CONTRIBUTOR:

Arthur Muller

AFFILIATION:

TITLE:

Professor Emeritus

DEPARTMENT:

History, Civilization, Archaeology and Art Of Ancient and Medieval Worlds

INSTITUTION:

University of Lille

BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Emeritus Arthur Muller taught Greek archaeology at the University of Lille (France) from 1981 to 2017. Concurrently he also was Director of Studies at the French School of Athens (2009-2012) and in 2009 was named a senior member of the Institut universitaire de France. His fieldwork in Megara (Greece), Epidamnos-Dyrrhachion (Durrës, Albania), and especially in Thasos (Greece), where he continues to direct an excavation in an area occupied from pre-colonial times to late antiquity, provided the foundation for his research on the formation of these Greek cities. He also excavated the basilica of the Roman forum in Bagacum Nerviorum (Bavay, France). However, Greek figurative terracottas is his preferred field of research, and he has published the extensive votive terracotta corpora uncovered in the sanctuaries of Thasos and Epidamnos-Dyrrhachion. He also is engaged in exploring the manufacturing techniques of coroplasts, the artisans who mass-produced terracottas, as well as the identification and the function of figurative terracottas in different contexts. This work on coroplasty has led him to take a broader interest in the place of handicraft production in the economy of ancient Greece. In all these fields he has published widely and has organized several international conferences.