1760s in archaeology
# 1760s in archaeology

The decade of the 1760s in archaeology involved some significant events.

## Explorations

* 1764: First systematic mapping of the Antonine Wall by William Roy.

## Excavations

* Formal excavations continue at Pompeii.
* 1757: Rev. Bryan Faussett begins excavations at Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Kent, England.

## Finds

* 1761-1767: Carsten Niebuhr transcribes the cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis.
* 1765: Nathaniel Davison discovers a stress-relieving chamber (Davison's chamber) above the Kings chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

## Publications

* 1762: James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett's Antiquities of Athens.
* 1764:
   * Robert Adam's Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia.
   * Johann Joachim Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums ("History of Ancient Art").

## Other events

* 1764: French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy deciphers the Phoenician language using the inscriptions on the Cippi of Melqart from Malta.

## Births

* 1760:
   * January 6 - Richard Polwhele, Cornish antiquarian (d. 1838)
   * June 8 - Karl Böttiger, German archaeologist (d. 1835)
* 1763:
   * November 19 - Karl Ludwig Fernow, German art critic and archaeologist (d. 1808)
   * Samuel Lysons, English antiquarian (d. 1819)
* 1766: March 16? - Jean-Frédéric Waldeck, French antiquarian, cartographer, artist and explorer (d. 1875)
* 1769:
   * March 23 - William Smith, English geologist (d. 1839)
   * August 23 - Georges Cuvier, French naturalist, zoologist and paleontologist (d. 1832)
   * September 14 - Alexander von Humboldt, Prussian explorer and writer (d. 1859)

## Deaths

* 1765:
   * March 3 - William Stukeley, English antiquarian (b. 1689)
   * September 5 - Anne Claude de Caylus, French archaeologist (d. 1765)
* 1767: June 17 - Jean-Baptiste Greppo, French canon and archaeologist (b. 1712)
* 1768: June 8 - Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German art critic and archaeologist (b. 1717)
