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Cecil L. Striker Personal Papers
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives [Contact Us]3260 South Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104-6324
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
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Dr. Cecil L. Striker was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree. While working on his M.A. and Ph.D. at The Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, Striker supplemented his studies in programs at Harvard University, the University of Marburg, and Technische Hochschule Munich. His first collegiate teaching experiences included the Harvard Summer School and Vassar College where he served as an Assistant Professor from 1965 to 1968. While at Vassar, Striker became the Field director of the Kalenderhane Archaeological Project sponsored by the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. This project, in conjunction with the Department of the History of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University spanned the years 1966 to 1978. Dr. Striker came to the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 as an Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art. Full professorship was bestowed in 1978. His primary research centered on Byzantine and medieval architecture and its related archaeology, in particular Byzantine Constantinople. Striker represented Dumbarton Oaks during restoration and investigative field work at Kalenderhane Camii in Istanbul
Cecil Striker was the recipient of many fellowships and grants including a Fullbright Grant, a senior fellowship from the American Research Institute in Turkey a research grant from the University of Pennsylvania, NEH, the Kress and Skaggs Foundations. He was also named Art Historian in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Sriker retired from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 and was named Professor Emeritus in 2007. Since his retirement he has completed publication of the final reports on the Kalenderhane Archaeological Project, Istanbul. He is currently engaged in publication of his fieldwork on dendrochronological (tree-ring) dating of architecture in Greece and the Balkans.
The Cecil L. Striker Personal Papers span his professional activities from circa 1957 to 2009. Most of the material concerns his special area of research, the archaeology and architectural history of the Late Antique, Early Christian, Byzantine and Medieval periods (fourth through 15th centuries A.D.). Its geographic focus is on the lands of the former Byzantine Empire (modern Turkey, Greece, ex-Yugoslavia and Albania). There is also some material from Latin West.
The materials are in two formats. Most of the work is housed in 67 Hollinger-type boxes (ca. 28 linear feet). Material too large for these boxes is placed in 22 folders for storage in map drawers.
Most of the materials are working papers for publication and where this is the case the publication is included and placed at the front of the series.
The majority of the material (Bxs 1-41 and folders 1-17) is the archive of the Kalenderhane Archaeological Project(Istanbul). The second largest part (Boxes 46-60 and folders 18-22) comprise Striker's contribution as Co-Principal investigator (with Peter Kuniholm, Cornell Univ.) to the Aegean Dendrochronology Project. These are described below under their series title. These materials include, but are not limited to, printed documents, field notes and catalogues, photographic negatives, contact prints and photographic enlargements. Administrative and financial records are also represented.
Kanderhane Archaeological Project
The Kanderhane Archaeological Project is largely recognized as the most extensive combined archaeological exploration and historic preservation carried out on a Byzantine building in Istanbul and one of the largest anywhere. The project was initiated in 1966 under the auspices of the Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University. Dogan Kuban, Professor of the History of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University, joined Striker as co-director. Striker was responsible for all aspects of the project including the editing of its two volumes and final report(Mainz 1997 and 2007).
In addition to fully clarifying the structural history of the site and bringing to light a Roman bath and two earlier churches, the project also discovered a fragmentary mid-thirteenth century fresco cycle of the life of St. Francis Assisi, painted during the crusader occupation of Constantinople, and the only mosaic from Constantinople with Christian subject (Presentation of the Christ child in the Temple) from the period before iconoclasm.
Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii) Archaeological Project
Striker's first extensive field project was conducted in the small church of the Myrelaion (in Turkish, Bodrum Camii or Cellar Mosque) in 1965 and 1966. Although the building was in a ruinous state, having suffered badly from three fires and several disfiguring restorations, it still enjoyed the status of the quintessential Middle-Byzantine church type. It had never been surveyed or fully studied. Striker conducted a full architectural study and excavated the substructure. This clatified many obscure features of the building and its context. Striker detailed this work in the Monograph published by Princeton University Press widely used in the field.
Istanbul Rail Tunnel Project (IRTP)
For this project, Striker was a general archaeological consultant with the firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc. on the Istanbul Rail Tunnel Project. Parsons Brinckerhoff had built the subway systems in New York City, Washignton D.C. and the San Francisco BART. They were charged with producing a feasibility study for a sub-Bosphorus rail tunnel in combination with a twenty five year forward project for Istanbul mass transit. They hoped to obtain a contract for the work but the Japanese candidate, who incorporated many of the Parsons Brinckerhoff elements was selected. The project, eventually called Marmaray, opened in October 2013 with the second phase due to be completed in 2015.
Striker was responsible for designing the methodologies for dealing with archaeological, and eventually historic, preservation materials encountered in the project. To accomplish this he formed an international group of experts to advise on the project and consulted with the Superintendency of Rome about their handling of the construction of the Rome subway.
Ultimately, Striker's design was not accepted amid the exclusion of foreign experts and discord among the Turkish organizations charged with various aspects of the program. The discovery of the Port of Theodosius and the remains of over thirty sunken ships also seriously compromized and overwhelmed the project. Striker's designs throw a light on the complex problem of urban design and development in a archaeologically sensitive city.
Aegean Dendrochronology Project
In 1974, Striker partnered with Peter Kuniholm, then a graduate student in Classical Archaeology at Penn, in an informal collaboration to use dendrochronology (tree ring dating) to date buildings and other archaeological materials in Turkey. This ewffort grew to become the Aegean Dendrochrology Project. This collaboration lasted until 1988. Striker worked with the post-Classical material-particularly the Byzantine architecture. Striker and Kuniholm analyzed wood samples from some 130 buildings of Byzantine and Ottoman date. Results were published jointly. This archive contains hundreds of negatives, contact sheets, photographic enlargements and measured survey drawings of these buildings.
Striker Dendrochronology Project
These materials are from Striker's independent work on tree ring dating which includes a nine season study of the acropolis castle of Thessaloniki, the Heptapyrgion. The tree ring laboratory of Burghart Schmidt at the University of Cologne assisted.
A special part of the collection includes information on the organizing, planning and editing of the festschrift for Richard Krautheimer and Striker's relationship with Wolfgang Wiemer whom he encouraged to come to the United States.
People
- Angel, J. Lawrence, 1915-1986
- Dumser, Elisha Ann
- Krautheimer, Richard, 1897-1994
- Kuban, Dogan, b. 1926
- Kuniholm, Peter I.
- Peschlow, Urs, b. 1943
- Powell, Josephine, 1917-2007
- Striker, Cecil L., b. 1932
- Wiemer, Wolfgang, M.D.
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Cecil L. Striker
- Finding Aid Date
- 1/22/2015