Downing College : Professor W. K. C. Guthrie collection: Glass lantern slides taken on expeditions to Asia Minor, 1929-32

Guthrie, William Keith Chambers (1906-1981) historian

Downing College

<p style='text-align: justify;'>These glass slides are part of a larger collection of personal papers, slides and other items belonging to former Master of Downing College, Professor William Keith Chambers Guthrie, deposited in the College Archive by the Guthrie family in 2018-19. They were housed in two boxes, labelled 'Slides for talk on Asia Minor', and further investigation suggested they were taken during the expeditions undertaken by Guthrie with W. M. Calder and W. H. Buckler between 1929 and 1932. Some of the slides are similar or identical to plates in the published 1933 volume ('Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, Vol. IV') relating to these expeditions. Where possible, titles are those from the handwritten numbered lists found in the first box - listed here as DCPP/GUTH/6/2/82-84. (Those in the first box were generally found in the original listed order, although the slides from number 40 onwards bore little resemblance to the order of the handwritten lists. These slides have been described in square brackets, with some being identified from images in 'M. A. M. A., Vol. IV').</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>W. K. C. Guthrie matriculated at Trinity College in 1925, having been awarded the Eric Evan Spicer classical scholarship. Graduating with a starred First in Part II of the Classical Tripos, he was awarded the top Studentship, the Craven, followed the year after by the Chancellor's Medal for Classics. The Craven Studentship required six months to be spent on research outside Cambridge and so he joined the epigraphical expedition to Central Anatolia led by W. M. Calder and W. H. Buckler in Spring 1929 (which was cut short due to illness). The epigraphical studies published in the 'Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua' Vol IV (MUP, 1933) were mainly the result of expeditions in 1930 and 1932, intended to complete a survey of monumental inscriptions of a region of Turkey stretching from Afyon Karahisar (Akroenos) to Uluborlu (Apollonia) and Dinar (Apameia), plus the area around ancient Eumeneia. Guthrie began as Calder's assistant, with the team recording twenty inscriptions a day, but was soon taking his own squeezes. His travels in Asia Minor and those he met on these expeditions, including locals, made a strong impression on him and he frequently referred to these in his books. During the 1930 expedition, he was elected a Bye-Fellow of Peterhouse College (full Fellow from 1932) and began lecturing for the Classical Tripos the following year. He became an Assistant Lecturer in 1934, lecturing on Greek Religious Thought (Part I) as well as Aristotle (Part II). During the Second World War, Guthrie was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and was posted to Istanbul in 1943. In 1952, he was elected Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy and, in 1957, left Peterhouse to become the Master of Downing College, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. He wrote 16 books on ancient philosophy over the course of his long and distinguished career.</p>