One of the Penn Museum’s most prominent archaeologists, Donald White, passed away on November 21 after a tragic car accident. Dr. White was emeritus professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator-in-Charge of the Penn Museum’s Mediterranean Section for over 30 years. He received his degrees from Harvard (B.A., 1957: Classics) and Princeton (Ph.D., 1963: Classical Archaeology), and subsequently taught at the University of Michigan in addition to Penn. He was the lead curator in the reinstallation of the Greece, Etruscan Italy, and Rome galleries in the Museum, to which he devoted nearly 13 years, and they still represent one of the Museum’s most successful re-installations.
He was especially well known as a field archaeologist. As a graduate student he joined Princeton’s excavation team at Morgantina in central Sicily, which led to a Ph.D. thesis on the introduction and spread of Demeter’s cult in Sicily. He then turned to the coastal region of Libya in North Africa, directing excavations at the port city of Apollonia (1965–1967) and then the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at nearby Cyrene. In a series of seasons lasting from 1969 until 1981, Dr. White and his international team excavated an enormous amount of the Cyrene sanctuary, with discoveries ranging from the 7th century BCE to the 3rd century CE. As series editor for the Cyrene Final Publications, he edited five monographs and authored three more him- self, including a volume on the Sanctuary’s architectural development, conflict with Christianity, and final days.
In 1984 he turned to the northwest coast of Egypt, where he conducted three seasons of excavation on a small island near the city of Marsa Matruh (ancient Greek Paraitonion, and the seat of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during World War II). He concentrated on the Late Bronze Age (second millennium BCE) settlement and published his results in two volumes, demonstrating that the site marked an important western distribution point for Minoan, Mycenaean, and Cypriot pottery. At the time of his death he had just completed a magisterial historical overview of the horse in North Africa, from the Bronze Age to the 20th century, which serves as a testament to the vast scope of Dr. White’s knowledge and interests.
He was an active member and former President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, and a member of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia and the Archaeological Institute of America. He retired from Penn in 2003, and once summed up his career as a “bumpy but consistent road” that took him to a “uniquely interesting but never boring” part of the world.
BRIAN ROSE, PH.D., is Curator-in-Charge of the Museum’s Mediterranean Section.
The family of Dr. White has established the Donald White Classical Archaeology Fieldwork Fund to provide financial support to Penn students who wish to conduct fieldwork in the Mediterranean. For more information or to make a contribution to this fund contact Therese Marmion at 215.898.3165 or tmarmion@upenn.edu.