Lydia Baumbach | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Stellenbosch University of Cambridge |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Classics |
| Sub-discipline | Mycenaean Greek and Linear B |
| Institutions | University of Stellenbosch, Rhodes University, University of Pretoria, University of Cape Town |
Lydia Baumbach (1924 – 9 February 1991) was a South African classical scholar, known particularly for her work in the field of Mycenaean studies.[1][2]
Lydia Baumbach was born in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1924, to a German missionary family associated with the Rhenish Mission.[1]
Baumbach attended the Stellenbosch Rhenish Girls' High School until 1942. She then studied at the University of Stellenbosch, achieving two M.A.s with distinction, one in Latin and one in Greek; for each of these she was awarded an Abe Bailey Scholarship.[1] From 1955 to 1957 she attended the University of Cambridge as an Affiliated Student at Newnham College; during this period she studied the Linear B script under the supervision of John Chadwick, which she would continue to focus on in her research throughout her later career.[1][3]
In 1947, Baumbach began working at the University of Stellenbosch as a Junior Lecturer; after her studies in Cambridge, she took up a position as lecturer at Rhodes University, where she was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1959. She moved briefly to the University of Pretoria and then became a Senior Lecturer in the University of Cape Town in 1965, where she was appointed as Chair of Classics in 1976; she remained in this position until her retirement in 1988.[1][2] She taught both Latin and Greek languages and literature, and was a popular public speaker, delivering summer school lectures and tours of Greek sites for Swan Hellenic Tours; she was also active in the Classical Association of South Africa, which she chaired in 1983–1984, becoming the first woman to do so.[1][2][4]
Baumbach's research focused mainly on the Mycenaean Greek language and the Linear B writing system; her most important contributions to this field include compiling a vocabulary of Mycenaean Greek (with John Chadwick) in 1963 and publishing the supplement to this work as a sole author (in 1971), as well as being responsible for the compilation of two volumes of the Studies in Mycenaean Inscriptions and Dialect bibliography, published in 1968 and 1986.[3][5][6][7][8] She also published studies focusing in detail on individual Linear B tablets or series of tablets,[9][10] as well as a series of articles on the personal names in the Linear B texts, focusing on what the proportions of Greek or non-Greek names found amongst different groups of people showed about Mycenaean society.[11][12][13]
