Martin Sinclair Frankland Hood, generally known as Sinclair Hood, passed away on Monday, aged 103.
He was one of the great archaeologists of the 20th century, and was particularly associated with the Minoan Palace of Knossos where he worked and excavated for many years.
He passed away on Monday, two weeks short of his 104th birthday.
Hood was born in Cobh, (then Queenstown), Ireland, in 1917.
He received a Master of Arts degree from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1939 and later received a diploma in Prehistoric Archaeology from the University of London in 1947.
Hood then attended the British School of Archaeology in Athens. He later served as assistant director (1949-1951) and director (1954-1962).
He led the excavations at Knossos between 1957-1961.
Sinclair Hood also authored numerous books and articles including:
- The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (1953)
- Archaeological survey of the Knossos Area (1958)
- The Home of the Heroes? The Aegean before the Greeks (1967)
- The Minoans: Crete in the Bronze Age. (Ancient Peoples and Places) (1971)
- Prehistoric Emporio and Ayio Gala: V. 1: Excavations in Chios, 1938-55 (British School of Archaeology, 1982)
- Knossos Excavations 1957-61: Early Minoan (2011)
In 2000, Sinclair Hood was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of History-Archeology of the University of Athens.
His most recent work, a monumental compilation of The Masons’ Marks of Minoan Knossos, was published just last year.
The Lecturership in Aegean Prehistory at Oxford is named after Sinclair and his wife Rachel who predeceased him in 2016.
*More on GCT: New research suggests Minoan civilisation was not wiped out due to natural disaster
