CRESSIDA RIDLEY 1917-1998

Cressida came to archaeology relatively late in life through participating in the field work of the local archaeological group in Wiltshire near her home. Of a generation when a formal higher education was still considered exceptional, especially for women, she nevertheless had all the instincts of a scholar and researcher from an early age. A keen intellect, a voracious appetite for information and an outspoken advocacy of truth and logic, could all have guided her in any one of several directions. Time and chance brought her to Greek prehistory via a distinction in the Postgraduate Diploma in European Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, London, under the guidance of Professor J.D. Evans. Awarded a Scholarship by the British School at Athens to begin her research into the Macedonian Late Neolithic, she worked hard to master modern Greek - spending many months in Thessaloniki and soon became a familiar visitor to the museums and collections of northern Greece where she recorded and drew hundreds of examples of the varied pottery of the period.

She joined in many of the excavations of the British School - Saliagos, Lefkandi, Sitagroi and Myrtos - learning the skills of the excavator while applying her own acute powers of observation and rigorous chain of argument to problems of stratigraphy.

Chance, too, brought her to Servia, to conduct with Katerina Rhomiopoulou, then in charge of the IZ Ephoria, the rescue excavations described in this volume, which proved so rewarding that they provided material for years of study and evaluation. Practical and pragmatic, she solved most of the problems associated with any excavation without fuss, whether it was raising the funds, gathering a skilled team of archaeologists, searching out workmen to whom archaeological excavation and women directors were still a novelty, or organising the study of large quantities of varied material.

Throughout the excavation she felt and acknowledged a special debt to Ioannis Papadopoulos who had learnt excavation with Bob Rodden and David Clark when they explored the early neolithic site near his village, Nea Nikomedeia, and became foreman to excavations at Sitagroi, Kastritsa, Assiros and Knossos, as well as Servia.

Once the excavations were completed in 1973, she made an extended visit to Greece each summer and autumn, helping on the excavations of others - at Assiros and Lefkandi in particular, and continuing the painstaking sorting and classification of the pottery and other finds from Servia, by now housed in the museum at Florina. Many of us who worked there with her remember with great affection the warmth of her welcome as well as the hours of work in the museum there - often in Spartan conditions since the central heating had hardly worked since the museum was built and winter comes early to this north western corner of Macedonia. For much of the time however, this was for Cressida a solitary task, undertaken with determination and single mindedness.

Little by little the work of study was completed, as clearly demonstrated by the ledgers of records of sherds counted and weighed, of registration cards in her distinctive spiky handwriting, of files of drawings and negatives, all carefully indexed. By 1990 this record was complete and compilation of the report proper could begin: the present volume is the real reward of so much labour.

It was a privilege for us to help her in the final stages of preparing this report, to exchange views, to argue the case for different definitions and interpretations, to benefit from her excellent memory for detail - even without consulting the record - and from her insistence on logic and consistency. Her death in June 1998 was unexpected and premature: we could not conceive of such a determined and indomitable character not seeing the job through. She had, however, read, discussed and approved every section, corrected the grammar and helped chose the illustrations. Her energy and dedication started and maintained this project, her inspiration will help us finish it.