SAMIAN AMPHORAS - The American School of Classical Studies at ...

54 VIRGINIA R. GRACE
have quoted above.3 Then, and again durin-g our reconnaissance-brief but in force-
in Syme in early July of 1957, we had glimpses of the smaller but unique collection
of Nikltas Haviaras.4 It was understood he would himself make the full publication to
which he had looked forward in his preliminary report; and I hoped to make photo-
graphs for him to use in this publication. I had later some correspondence with him,
but chiefly concerning his father's collection.
During the spring and early summer of 1959, Mr. Benaki's periodical reports
to us on new acquisitions in his collection in Alexandria (which came to him a
thousand at a time in mixed baskets of stamped handles largely salvaged from local
building operations) included mention of two stamps with the forepart of a bull (our
1 and 2) like that illustrated by Haviaras in his 1911 publication (our 4), and also
of two examples of a facing Hera (our 25 and 26) which also has turned out to have
been matched in the Haviaras collection (our 27). It seemed very desirable to en-
courage and help Mr. Haviaras to publish his exciting collection. But other pressures
prevented. In October of 1962 Nikitas Haviaras died, without having achieved his
wish.
Now an occasion arose that seemed designed to rescue from oblivion the boy's
discovery in Samos, nearly 70 years ago, of an unknown class of amphora stamps,
one of interest to many more than a narrow specialist. So in October 1968 I asked
Mrs. Petropoulakou to go back to Syme and make the necessary records of a col-
lection previously known to us only in a few samples. Warm thanks are given to the
family of our friend Nikitas Haviaras for making possible this publication.5 In the
Here, as at other key points of the investigations leading to this article, the contribution of
the former Miss Savvatianou has not been limited to normal research assistance. That we know
the material which is the kernel of this study is due first to the sympathetic relations she quickly
established for our group with the Haviaras family, then to her enterprise in undertaking the
stormy voyage to Syme in the fall of 1968, then to admirable performance in the classification and
recording of this, to us, almost entirely new material in the short time between calls at Syme of the
only available island boat. Recording included photography of nearly the whole collection, with
no failures and with appreciation of the original content and quality of the individual pieces, despite
the small size of many types and the bad preservation of many impressions.
4 Grace 1960, especially pp. 474-475.
5 Of the collection of Nikitas Haviaras, rubbings were taken of all the stamps, also notes on the
fabric and dimensions of the handles except for the two Rhodian, also photographs of all but five
(two of which were the Rhodian). In the absence of Nikitas Haviaras' daughter (now married
and living in Egypt), Mrs. Petropoulakou was given every assistance and kindness by Miss Eleni
Apokotou, his niece, as also by Dr. Kostas Pharmakides, dentist of Syme, who had been a close
friend of Nikitas Haviaras during his last years and had assisted Mr. Haviaras in a study published
posthumously, a first volume on the monasteries of Syme (Athens, 1962, the press of D. Franki-
adakis and Chr. Fratseskakis). For a copy of this book by her father, I am grateful to Maria
Haviara-Katsimbri. From the introduction we learn that it is a part-realization of a work on
Byzantine and post-Byzantine remains in Syme planned for their years after retirement by the
brothers Nikitas and Michael when they finished at Athens University and went to be school-
masters of Greek communities in the Sudan and in Alexandria. Lucas Benaki tells me that Michael
died in the 1950's.