Percy Neville Ure M.A. was the University of Reading

University of Reading

The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...

's first Professor of Classics (1911-1946) and the founder of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology

Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology

The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology forms part of the Department of Classics at the University of Reading. It is situated on the university's Whiteknights Campus, about from the centre of the English town of Reading....

 at Reading. His wife and former pupil at Reading, Annie Dunman Ure (nee Hunt) (1893 - 1976), was the museum's first Curator from 1922 until her death. The Ures were experts on Greek and Egyptian antiquities, and particularly Greek ceramics. With Ronald M. Burrows

Ronald Montagu Burrows

Ronald Montagu Burrows was a British academic who served as Principal of King's College London from 1913-1920....

, they undertook important excavations at Rhitsona in Boeotia

Boeotia

Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...

, Greece.

Percy has been described as "...an inveterate picker-up of fragments" which he acquired wherever he could, including from children or discarded under bushes at archaeological sites like Rhitsona or Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...

. Many were packed in the boxes of Percy's favourite cigarettes. He also accepted a donation of "battered" items from the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. Percy collected plain and functional items neglected by other scholars, believing that they might be as informative as more attractive pieces.

Together the Ures enjoyed a passion for Greek ceramics and Boeotian pottery in particular. They wrote several important books on finds at Rhitsona as well as over fifty articles on Greek pottery. in 1954 they produced an important volume in the international series, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which included around half of the current Ure Museum collection.

Selected publications

• The Greek Renaissance. London: Methuen, 1921. Free download here.
• The Origin of Tyranny. Cambridge: University Press, 1922. Free download here.
• Sixth & fifth century pottery from excavations made at Rhitsona. London: Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  , 1927.
• Justinian and His Age. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
  Penguin Books
  Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
  
  , 1951.
• Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain-University of Reading. London: Oxford University Press, 1954.

External links

• Ronald M. Burrows and Percy N. Ure in Boeotia. by Dr. Victoria Sabetai, Academy of Athens. Archived here.