Malcolm Hewitt Wiener (1935-2026)
The BSA community is deeply saddened by the loss of Malcolm H. Wiener, a supporter of Aegean prehistory for over four decades, an astute and clear-thinking author, and a generous friend and supporter of the BSA.
In 1981 Malcolm formalised his financial support for Aegean prehistory when he founded the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP). It is no exaggeration to say that INSTAP funding transformed that field, facilitating fieldwork and research to an extent and on a scale inconceivable without its existence. Since 1981 all BSA projects with a prehistoric component, so including diachronic survey projects, have benefited from INSTAP support. Crete and Knossos were particularly close to Malcolm’s heart and he donated generously to the BSA’s Knossos Research Centre (KRC), most recently with a substantial donation in support of Knossos 2025. INSTAP funded the Knossos Curatorial Project to digitise the contents of the Knossos Stratigraphical Museum, which not only met that goal, but also along the way gave a string of interns the opportunity to learn data management in a museum context ‘on the job’. The KRC enjoys productive relations with the INSTAP East Crete Center, founded through Malcolm’s generosity in 1995, while the Fitch Laboratory collaborates closely ‘across the garden’ with the Wiener Laboratory, founded by Malcolm in 1992 and re-housed in new state-of-the art facilities inaugurated in 2016. In addition to his donations, Malcolm was instrumental in facilitating BSA fundraising in the USA through the establishment of the BSA Foundation in 1999.
Malcolm’s academic interest in Aegean prehistory goes further back than 1981: in 1974 he founded the New York Aegean Bronze Age Colloquium. I first met him in the Spring of 1984 at the Pylos Comes Alive Colloquium and delivered a seminar to the Bronze Age Colloquium the following year. In addition to the intellectual stimulation, a characteristic of such occasions was the generous and convivial hospitality that Malcolm provided. However, Malcolm’s involvement in the field went well beyond that of an interested amateur: he published a series of sixty academic papers between 1982 and 1985. The first explored the so-called ‘Minoan Thalassocracy’ (‘Crete and the Cyclades in LM I: the Tale of the Conical Cups’), the last, in a volume published last year exploring the so-called Pax Minoica, combined his interest in Crete and Thera (‘Known Unknowns: Crete Between the Thera Eruption and the Destructions of the End of LM IB’). His title, with its Rumsfeldian allusion, reflects Malcolm’s long involvement in US politics, notably as an Advisor to the State Department (1971-1997). These publications, plus a further twenty-four unpublished presentations, earned Malcolm his place as an academic colleague. His contributions, particularly those on Aegean chronology, will ‘stand the test of time’ (pun intended!).
Malcolm was appointed as a Vice President of the BSA in 1988, and received many other honours and awards. Among those, perhaps most relevant to the BSA – a UK institution based in Greece – are his honorary degrees from Sheffield (1997), Athens (1998) and UCL (2009); his election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1998), as a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens (2018), and as an Honorary Member of the Board of the Archaeological Society of Athens (2018); and the award of the Gold Cross of Honour of Greece (2014).
It is difficult to imagine Aegean prehistory without Malcolm’s enduring presence. Although his loss leaves a massive gap in the lives of his many colleagues and friends, his many contributions will ensure that his memory will live on – he will truly enjoy κλέος ἄφθιτον “enduring fame”, in Homer’s words. His loss will leave no greater gap than that in the lives of his wife, Carolyn, and his family, to whom the BSA extends its deepest condolences.
Καλό ταξίδι, Malcolm!
Professor John D. Bennet
Photo caption: Malcolm H. Wiener with Colin Macdonald at Knossos by Peter Warren