Edith Wightman

Edith Mary Wightman
FSA FSA Scot
Born1 January 1938
Leith, Scotland
Died17 December 1983(1983-12-17) (aged 45)
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
EducationSt Andrews; Oxford
OccupationsArchaeologist, ancient historian

Edith Mary Wightman FSA FSA Scot (1 January 1938 – 17 December 1983) was a British ancient historian and archaeologist. She taught at McMaster University from 1969 until her death in 1983, rising to full professor. Wightman was best known for her studies Roman Trier and the Treveri (1970) and Gallia Belgica (1985).

Biography

Early life and education

Edith Mary Wightman was born on 1 January 1938 in Leith, Scotland, the daughter of R. J. and Edith W. Wightman. She studied at the University of St Andrews, receiving her MA in 1960, when she graduated at the top of her year and was awarded the Millar Prize for the best annual record in her faculty. She held graduate scholarships until 1965. She then studied at Oxford under Ian Richmond and C. E. Stevens, receiving a diploma in Classical Archaeology, also with distinction, in 1962 and a DPhil in 1968. Her doctoral thesis on Roman Trier and the Treveri was published as a monograph in 1970. It was the first monographic study of the civitas Treverorum and was reviewed in more than twenty journals across Europe and America.

Career

Wightman was an assistant lecturer and then lecturer at the University of Leicester from 1965 to 1969. In 1969 she joined the Department of History at McMaster University in Canada and took Canadian citizenship. There she rose from assistant professor to associate professor in 1973 and to full professor in 1978. She succeeded Edward Togo Salmon as the department's ancient historian.

Wightman's excavation experience began as a student, at Corbridge and on smaller sites in Britain between 1956 and 1959. She went on to spend three seasons as first assistant to the director G. C. Schwarz at Avenches in Switzerland, and worked under Graham Webster at the Roman villa of Barnsley Park. In the Mediterranean she took part in three projects: the Canadian excavations at Monte Irsi under Alastair Small; the Second Canadian Team excavations at Carthage, which she co-directed with Colin Wells; and the multidisciplinary field survey of the Liri Valley, Italy, which she directed.

Wightman was a regular attendee at Roman archaeology conferences, presenting on her research areas. These included the International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, where she first presented her work on Gaul at Tel Aviv in 1967 and spoke on the Lingones at the congress in Lower Germany in 1974.

Death

Wightman was murdered on 17 December 1983 in her office at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She was found bound with surgical tape over her eyes and mouth and her hands handcuffed behind her back. Credit cards were missing, and police considered robbery the probable motive. A man was charged with the murder some weeks later.

Reception

Wightman's work has been described as a "model of how to combine literary, epigraphic, and archaeological data with caution and imagination". Her research for Gallia Belgica involved annual visits to archaeological institutes in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Her posthumously published survey of Gallia Belgica has been called "magisterial", and John Percival wrote that "it is hard to think of a better study of an individual Roman province in terms of comprehensiveness and reliability". A "concern for the Roman countryside and its population" underlay her work, and she was remembered for her skill as a researcher and teacher and as "a much loved and respected scholar".

Honours

Wightman was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1972, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1973, a foreign associate member of the Société des Antiquaires de France in 1976, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1982.

Works

References

  1. 1 2 Gordon, Laura. "Wightman, Edith Mary". Database of Classical Scholars | Rutgers, University of New Jersey. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ridgway, David (1994). "Edith Wightman". Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists by American Philological Association. p. 709.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Rüger, Christoph B. (1986). "Edith Mary Wightman in memoriam". Trierer Zeitschrift (in German). 49: 415–416.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Rossiter, J (1984). "Edith Mary Wightman". Échos du Monde Classique. 28: 302–3.
  5. ↑ Monte Irsi, Southern Italy : the Canadian excavations in the Iron Age and Roman sites, 1971-1972. Small, Alastair., Barker, Graeme. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. 1977. ISBN 090453166X. OCLC 3390190.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. ↑ Hitchner, R. Bruce (2010). "Professor Colin Michael Wells". Libyan Studies. 41: 5–6. doi:10.1017/S0263718900000236. ISSN 0263-7189.
  7. ↑ Archaeological survey in the Lower Liri Valley, Central Italy. Wightman, Edith Mary, -1983., Hayes, John W., Martini, I. P. (Ireneo Peter), 1935-. Oxford: Tempvs Reparatvm. 1994. ISBN 9780860547693. OCLC 32394341.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. ↑ Wightman, E. (1971). "'Some aspects of the Late Roman Defensive System in Gaul'". Roman Frontier Studies 1967, ed. S. Applebaum: 46–51.
  9. ↑ Wightman, Edith Mary (1977). "'The Lingones: Lugdunensis, Belgica or Germania superior?'". Studien zu den Militargrenzen Roms II, ed. D. Haupt and H.G. Horn: 201–218.
  10. 1 2 "Canadian News Briefs". United Press International. 12 January 1984. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  11. ↑ Transvestite charged in murder. In: The Cord Weekly, 19 January 1984, p. 8 (online).
  12. ↑ Woolf, G. (2005). "Family History in the Roman North-West". In George, M. (ed.). The Roman Family in the Empire: Rome, Italy, and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 231–254.
  13. ↑ Laet, S. J. De (1987). "Wightman Edith Mary . Gallia Belgica. London: B. T. Batsford, 1985. xiv + 386 pp., 84 illus. £19.95". Antiquity. 61 (231): 145–146. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00072732. ISSN 0003-598X.
  14. ↑ Greene, K. (1986). The Archaeology of the Roman Economy. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd. p. 141.
  15. 1 2 Percival, John (1986). "Gallia Belgica. By Wightman Edith Mary. 24 × 15·5 cm. Pp. xiv + 386, 44 figs. + 40 pls. London: B. T. Batsford, 1985. ISBN 0-7134-4609-9. £19·95". The Antiquaries Journal. 66 (2): 432. doi:10.1017/S0003581500028377. ISSN 1758-5309. S2CID 163644486.
  16. ↑ "Anniversary meeting, 30 November 1984, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland". doi:10.9750/PSAS.114.612.618.