Michael Gough (archaeologist)

Michael Richard Edward Gough (23 September 1916 – 15 October 1973) was a British archaeologist and the third Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (1961-1968). As Director of the BIAA Gough pioneered the archaeology of early Christian sites in Turkey in anticipation of changes in academic viewpoints which were to follow in the 1990s.[1]

Michael Gough

Professor Gough attended the Dragon School in Oxford before gaining a scholarship to Stonyhurst College where he concentrated on studying the Classics. In 1936 he gained a Classical Exhibition to Peterhouse College, Cambridge where he went on to become a Scholar and Prizeman. In 1939 he gained a First Class Honours Degree in the Classical Tripos with Archaeology as his specialism. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939 Gough joined the Royal Artillery as a Gunner, seeing service in the Middle East and throughout the whole of the Italian Campaign including during the battles of Cassino and on the Sangro. He was discharged from the Army in Germany in the Spring of 1946 with the rank of Major.[2] In 1946 he married Dorothy Mary née Ormsby;[3] together they took part in various excavations.[4][5][6]

On being demobilised in September 1946 Gough returned to Stonyhurst College as Classics Master and in 1947 he returned to the University of Cambridge to take a Diploma in Classical Archaeology. He was awarded a Scholarship by the recently founded British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara becoming the Institute's second Scholar and later becoming a Fellow. Arriving in Ankara in February 1949 he began to study the classical antiquities at Cilicia. From then until 1951 Gough was almost continually at Ankara as well as Cilicia. He became a fluent speaker of Turkish.[2]

In 1961 Gough succeeded Seton Lloyd to become the third Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (BIAA). He had a focus on the Byzantine period, with excavations at the church complex at Alahan Monastery (between 1952 and 1972 Gough directed nine seasons of excavation here) and at Dağ Pazarı.[7] Gough's involvement at Alahan was an important departure from the specialisms of his predecessors in prehistoric archaeology; from this period onwards the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara began to broaden its academic horizons. Among his scholarly researches were the later history of Anazarbus and the iconoclast decoration at Aloda.[8] During his Directorship the BIAA made one of its most important discoveries at Çatalhöyük. Michael Gough retired as Director of the BIAA in 1968.[9] He was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey from 1968 to 1969.[10]

Following his retirement Gough lived in Kingswear in Devon. He died suddenly in Toronto in Canada in 1973.[11][12] His final excavation programme at Alahan Monastery in Turkey was completed in 1972 before his death but the report was not published until 1985 by his widow, Mary Gough.[13][14]