Full Name: Kahane, Peter
Gender: male
Date Born: 1904
Date Died: 1974
Place Born: Berlin, Germany
Place Died: Basel, Basle-Town, Switzerland
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style), Antique, the, Classical, and Roman (ancient Italian culture or period)
Overview
Specialist in classical Greek, Roman and Near East art and architecture, particularly Greek geometrci art, and one of the leading archaeologists in Israel after World War II. Originally trained at universities in Berlin, Wurzburg and Munich (most influenced by his teacher Ernst Buschor), Kahane was forced to emigrate from Germany in 1933 due to his Jewish heritage. Finished his degree at the University of Basel in 1937, and moved to Palestine in 1938, where he worked for the British Mandate Government in the Department of Antiquities, directly tied to the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. In 1948, with the founding of Israel, he was appointed Chief Curator of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. Primarly responsible for founding the Antiquity section of the Isreale Museum. After retiring from museum service in Israel, he returned to the research he was forced to put aside after 1938, on classical Greek geometric art.
Selected Bibliography
“Entwicklungsphasen der attisch-geometrischen Keramik” AJA 44 (1940): 464-482. “Ikonologische Untersuchungen zur griechisch-geometrischen Kunst. Der Cesnola-Krater aus Kourion im Metropolitan Museum” AntK 16 (1973): 114-138. “Pottery Types from the Jewish Ossuary Tombs around Jerusalem.” IsrexpJ 2 (1952): 125-139, 176-182; and IsrexplJ 3 (1953): 48-54. “some Aspects of Ancient Glass from Israel” Antiquity and Survival. 2 (2/3 1957): 208-224
Sources
Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 291-292.