Barbara Tsakirgis, 1954–2019

Abstract

On 16 January 2019, Barbara Tsakirgis died in Nashville, Tennessee, from complications of ALS. Tsakirgis was well known as an expert on Greek houses and households as well as for her service—both formal and informal—to the field of Mediterranean archaeology. She was also known for her devotion to teaching and to her friends, students, and family. Nashville, Athens, and Sicily were the three foci of her life.Tsakirgis was born on 12 May 1954 in Arlington, Massachusetts. A proud New Englander, she studied at Yale University from 1972 to 1976, earning a B.A. cum laude in classics. She continued her education in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University where she earned an M.A. in 1979 and Ph.D. in 1984. Her doctoral dissertation, “The Domestic Architecture of Morgantina in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” presented the Hellenistic and Roman houses at Morgantina, the Sicilian site where Princeton began excavations in 1955. Though responsibility for the site had passed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the direction of fellow Princetonian Hugh Allen, and then to another Princeton graduate, Malcolm Bell III at the University of Virginia, Tsakirgis took up the study of the houses as part of a team of students and scholars working to publish the results of decades of excavation and to continue on-site investigation. This research would form the foundation of her lifetime engagement with the Greek house and household.