G. Kenneth Sams, former director of Penn’s long-lived Gordion Project, and Professor of Classical Archaeology at UNC Chapel Hill, has died at the age of 74. A veteran of Anatolian archaeology, Ken made a major contribution to our understanding of the world of the Iron Age Phrygians and their royal capital at Gordion in central Turkey.
Ken devoted 50 years of his life to Gordion, beginning in 1967 as a Penn graduate student under the super-vision of the project’s legendary first director, Professor Rodney Young. He immediately embarked on a career-long study of Phrygian pottery but also rapidly revealed his skill as an excavator, supervising a series of trenches. He returned to the site every season through 2014, but thereafter was physically unable to continue. Though not quite the longest-serving team member ever, Ken had more Gordion campaigns to his credit than anyone. He became the project’s third director in 1988, after his good friend Professor Keith DeVries stood down, and he held this position for 25 years until December 2013, sharing the last 6 years as co-director with Professor C. Brian Rose, the current director and Curator-in-Charge of the Museum’s Mediterranean Section.
Ken developed an unparalleled knowledge of Phrygian archaeology. His 1971 Penn Ph.D. dissertation, The Phrygian Painted Pottery of Early Iron Age Gordion and Its Anatolian Setting, was ground-breaking scholar-ship in a branch of Anatolian studies that had barely existed. An expanded version was published by Penn in 1994 as his two-volume magnum opus, The Early Phrygian Pottery. A fundamental resource, the book also includes an excellent assessment of the stratigraphic and architectural contexts of the pottery, demonstrating Ken’s fine command of the principles of archaeological excavation. His other publications covered a wide range of themes, including Phrygian art, architecture, trade, beer, and Gordion’s intricate chronological issues. The hallmarks of his work were a thorough and highly judicious analysis, delivered in a consummately elegant style.
Ken was a very perceptive man, and well-known for his courteous, diplomatic, and welcoming demeanor, with a wry sense of humor. His leadership was always calm and steady, and many people enjoyed the opportunities, support, and encouragement he gave them. With his fluency in Turkish, he developed close ties with Turkish colleagues and with the local community. Perhaps his proudest accomplishment was the creation of an enlarged and much improved Gordion Museum, to better elucidate the complexity of Gordion’s past and the remarkable creativity of Phrygian culture. Ken was a brilliant and resourceful archaeologist who contributed greatly to the ongoing success of the Gordion Project.
GARETH DARBYSHIRE, PH.D., is the Gordion Archivist.
With thanks to Cricket Harbeck, Richard Liebhart, Lynn Roller, C. Brian Rose, Shannan Stewart, and Maya Vassileva.