Skip to content

Ross, Ludwig

    Full Name: Ross, Ludwig

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 1806

    Date Died: 1859

    Place Born: Gut Altekoppel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

    Place Died: Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

    Home Country/ies: Germany

    Subject Area(s): acropolises, Ancient Greek (culture or style), archaeology, Greek (language), Greek (modern language), and Greek (modern)

    Career(s): directors (administrators)


    Overview

    Co-director of excavation of the Acropolis in mid-1830s, influential teacher at University of Athens (1837-1843); author of the first handbook of the archaeology of art in the modern Greek language (1841). Ross’ parents were peasants of Scottish origin. He initially studied medicine at Kiel before turning to classics, studying philosophy under August D. C. Twesten (1789-1876), history under Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (1785-1860), and classics under Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch (1790-1861). It was at Kiel that he also met the early art historian of classical pottery, Otto Jahn. Ross continued private study in Copenhagen where he secured the first travel scholarship offered by the King of Denmark. He also studied with Gottfried Hermann (1772-1848) in Leipzig. In 1832 he left for Greece where he was appointed ephor (magistrate) of antiquities of the Peloponnese the following year and general ephor in 1834. In 1835 he began directing the excavations of the Acropolis. He was responsible for the careful preservation of the monuments and, with the architects Eduard Schaubert (1804-1860) and Hans Christian Hansen (1803-1883) restored the Temple of Nike. His book Der Tempel der Kike Apteros appeared in 1839. In 1837 Ross was appointed professor of archaeology at the university of Athens, where he lectured in modern Greek. He translated the Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst of Otfried Müller into Greek for the use of his students. In 1843 Ross returned to Germany to be professor of archaeology and mythology at the university in Halle. In 1850 he founded a short-lived monthly journal with Karl Gustav Schwetschke (1804-1881) and Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884), the Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Literatur.


    Selected Bibliography

    Archäologische Aufsätze. 2 vols. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1855-61; Inscriptiones Graecae ineditae. 3 vols. Naples: C. A. Rhallis, 1834-45; edited, Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Literatur 1850; Reisen nach Kos, Halikarnassos, Rhodos und der insel Cypern. Halle: C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1852, English, A Journey to Cyprus (February and March 1845). Nicosia: printed at the ‘Phone’ Office, 1910; Ausgrabung von Olympia: ein Vorschlag. Braunschweig: M. Bruhn, 1853; Die Pnyx und das Pelasgikon in Athen: zur Wahrung der Topographie von Athen gegen einige neuere Zweifel. Braunschweig: C. A. Schwetschke, 1853; Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres. 3 vols. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1840-845; and Schaubert, Eduard, and Hansen, Christian. Die Akropolis von Athen nach den neuesten ausgrabungen: erste Abtheilung: der Temple der Nike Apteros. Berlin: Schenk und Gerstaecker, 1839; Kleinasien und Deutschland. Reisebriefe und Aufsätze mit Bezugnahme auf die Möglichkeit deutscher Niederlassungen in Kleinasien. Halle: C. E. M. Pfeffer, 1850;[loose translation of K. Otfried Müller’s Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst:] Encheiridion tes archaiologias ton technon. Athens: Ek tes Vasilikes Typographias, 1841.


    Sources

    Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 27-28; Petropoulou, Angeliki. “Ross, Ludwig (1806-59).” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 983-84.




    Citation

    "Ross, Ludwig." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/rossl/.


    More Resources

    Search for materials by & about this art historian: