Explorer/Excavator
Centurion, 1914–1945
Born 12 August 1880 in New London, New Hampshire
Died 3 July 1945 in Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire
Buried Princeton Cemetery
, Princeton, New Jersey
Proposed by John P. Peters and Gonzalez Lodge
Elected 6 June 1914 at age thirty-three
Archivist’s Note: Father of T. Leslie Shear, Jr.
Century Memorial
Theodore Leslie Shear. [Born] 1880. Classical Archaeologist.
Regarded among his professional colleagues of this country and abroad as the best organizer that ever directed an excavation. This fame increased from his work in uncovering the temple of Cybele at Sardis in Asia Minor, through his excavations of the great theatre in the anciently luxurious city of Corinth, to his highly organized and extraordinarily fruitful uncovering of the Athenian Agora, the market-place of ancient Athens, in which work many Centurions were associated. He showed the world a clear picture of the civic center of Athens in the days of her greatest prosperity, of her rise to greatness and her decline. He conducted the Agora work of excavation and publication at the highest level of scientific precision but he also delighted in making the results of the work a source of vivid pleasure to the general public. Professor of Classical Archaeology in Princeton University, Director of the Greek War Relief Association, Chairman of the Co-ordinating Committee of American Agencies in Greece, he contributed inestimably to the cause of Greece.
Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia
Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1945 Memorials
