Evi Touloupa

Evi Stasinopoulou-Touloupa was born in Athens on July 8 1924; her full first name was Paraskevi, abbreviated to Evi by her mother.[1] She attended the German School of Athens from 1936-42, and studied archaeology at the University of Athens.[2] After her studies, she began working in 1950 as a teacher in the private 'Athinaion' school, as women were not allowed in the Greek Archaeological Service at this period.[3] She then attended the Pontifico Istituto di Archaeologia Christiana in Rome for postgraduate study from 1953-54, thanks to an Italian scholarship.[3][4][5]

Touloupa's first archaeological job, which she began in 1955 after the removal of the prohibition of women working in the Archaeological Service, was as a research associate in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, where she worked unpacking and cataloguing antiquities which had been crated up and in some cases even buried for protection during World War II.[4][6] She later recalled her excitement at encountering real ancient artefacts for the first time after studying them at university, as well as the conditions she found while unpacking crates: “The vessels were wrapped in cotton and paper, which we were surprised to see often had blood drops on them. ‘It’s from the rats,’ my assistant Stavros told me.".[6] In the 1960s and 70s, she held a range of positions in various archaeological Ephorates and museums around Greece, serving as a curator in the Ephorate of the Ionian Islands, Corfu (1960-63); head of the prefectures of Boeotia and Phthiotis, based in Thebes (1963-65); curator of the National Archaeological Museum's bronze collection (1965-1973); head of the Ephorate of Epirus (1973-75); in the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis and the Ministry of Culture and Sports (1975); and head of the Ephorate of Euboea (1976-79).[4]

Notable archaeological work undertaken by Touloupa during this period included the excavation of the Mycenaean 'Palace of Kadmos' in Thebes, alongside the organisation of the Archaeological Museum of Thebes,[5] and, while in Euboea, the excavation and preservation of the Tomb and the "Heroon" at Lefkandi, on which she collaborated with the British School at Athens.[3][4]

In 1979, Touloupa became a fellow of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, studying the sculpture of the temple of Apollo Daphnephoros in Eretria, which then formed the subject of her PhD dissertation at the University of Ioannina (1982).[3][4] In 1982 Touloupa also became director of the Athens Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, a position she held until 1990, during which time she oversaw work on the restoration of the Acropolis, the creation of the Centre for the Study of the Acropolis in the restored Weiler Building, and the foundation of the Acropolis Friends Association, of which she became the honorary president.[3][4][5][7] After her retirement, she remained involved in the Council of the Acropolis Monuments Preservation Committee and the Council of the Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum.[5]

In 1991-2, Touloupa received a Fulbright Scholarship to visit Princeton University in order to work on the late archaic temple pediments from Karthaia on the island of Kea.[8]

From 1990-2000, Touloupa wrote columns for the newspaper 'Ta Nea', which were collected in the books "From Pnyx to Pagrati" (2004) and "Past but not forgotten" (2008).[4][5]

In 1962, Touloupa married Dimitrios Touloupas, a lawyer and politician.[5] The couple were arrested and briefly detained in 1969, during the period of the Greek military Junta; Dimitrios died in a car accident in 1978.[3][4]

Touloupa died aged 97 on October 11, 2021.[9] The Greek Minister of Culture and Sports, Lina Mendoni, praised her for her work "protecting and highlighting our cultural treasure, and supporting new, innovative and pioneering ideas, actions and projects for the times", and stated that she "linked her name with the history of Greek archaeology in the last decades of the 20th century".[5][9] An obituary in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini described her as "the great lady of archaeology... a truly heroic figure of the Greek 20th century".[7]