Olwen Brogan

Lady Olwen Phillis Frances Brogan (née Kendall; 15 December 1900 – died 18 December 1989;[1] later Hackett) was a British archaeologist and expert on Roman Libya. She attended University College London and later taught there. She was the author of two monographs, over thirty articles and was a regular reviewer for Antiquaries Journal, Antiquity and Journal of Roman Studies.[2]

Brogan initially learned excavation techniques under Mortimer Wheeler at Verulamium and Caerleon,[2] while her MA thesis analysed the Roman frontier in Germany and the relationship of Germanic peoples with the Roman Empire.[2]

She was one of the leading excavators at Gergovia in 1930 which expanded knowledge of Gallic oppida, however this work was interrupted by the Second World War.[2] Following the war, Brogan started work at Sabratha in Northern Libya, where she was the chief supervisor under the directorship of Kathleen Kenyon from 1948-1951.[2] While working at Sabratha, she supervised an area of domestic housing behind the forum which became known as “Casa Brogan”. Her method of excavation produced excellent stratigraphy and recording, unlike traditional colonial expeditions in North Africa, where houses tended to be cleared rather than excavated and recorded in great detail.[2]

Brogan excavated in Libya nearly every year from the 1950s to 1974,[3] particularly in Tripolitania at sites Lepcis Magna with John Ward-Perkins.[2]

Brogan’s largest work in Tripolitania was the interior settlement and monumental cemetery at Ghirza, creating one of the best published site of the Libyan interior.[3] Brogan excavated the site alongside Emilio Vergera-Cafarelli and David Smith over four seasons.[2] This work revealed structures which fit into the tradition in Roman Africa of fusing Hellenistic, Punic and Roman traditions with African ritual needs and ideologies.  

She also worked in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco [3] and in the 1970s, Brogan produced a publication of a previously unknown 6 km long Roman linear barrier made of stone wall and bank and ditch. This was significant as it marked the continuation of frontier earthworks already known in Tunisia.[2]

Between 1969-74, Brogan was appointed as the first Honorary Secretary for the Society for Libyan Studies. In 1984 the Society organised a conference in her honour, resulting in the publication of 'Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania: Papers in honour of Olwen Hackett'.[3]