Posted at <https://humanities.org.au/our-community/vale-graeme-clarke-ao-faha-1934-2023/>:linebreak=========================linebreaklinebreakVale Graeme Clarke AO FAHA: 1934-2023linebreakMay, 2023linebreaklinebreakThe Australian Academy of the Humanities acknowledges, with deep sadness, the death of Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke AO FAHA, one of Australia’s most prominent classical scholars. Graeme played an integral role in the establishment of the Academy – of which he was elected in 1975 – and made many outstanding contributions throughout the Academy’s 54-year history.linebreaklinebreakHistorian and archaeologist Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke AO FAHA began his academic career at the University of Auckland in New Zealand where he studied ancient Greek and Latin. An excellent scholar, he won four separate university awards, including the John Mulgan Memorial Prize for Greek. In 1957, Graeme earned a place at Oxford University where he studied ancient history and philosophy and graduated in 1959 with first-class honours and was awarded the College Prize.linebreaklinebreakGraeme was regarded by colleagues as “a historian of outstanding quality” and enjoyed a long and distinguished professional career including as a Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the Australian National University (1957 and from 1961-63); a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia (until 1966); an Associate Professor at the Department of Classical Studies at Monash University in Melbourne; followed by thirteen years as a Professor at the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Melbourne.linebreaklinebreakGraeme Clarke AO with Quentin Bryce, 2009.linebreakGraeme Clarke at a temple site in Syria.linebreakGraeme Clarke at the 2012 Symposium.linebreaklinebreakFrom 1982-1990, Graeme was the Professor of Classical Studies and Assistant Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the ANU. He later became the Director of the HRC and remained in that position until 1995 before becoming the Associate Director from 1995-1999. From 2000-2006 he was a Visiting Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the ANU.Upon being made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2009, Graeme remarked, “I have spent my life trying to understand another world – whether it’s reading literature that was written in the language of that other world or digging up archaeological materials from that world.”linebreaklinebreakAnd upon being asked how history would remember him, Graeme nominated his published works – particularly four volumes on the letters of Cyprian of Carthage, which had never been annotated before and which illuminated a dozen years of life in Carthage in the middle of the third century AD.linebreaklinebreakIn addition to his devoted service to tertiary education over many decades, Graeme also dedicated more than 20 years to investigating the bronze-age el Qitar on the Euphrates in Syria and the nearby first-century BC fort of Jebel Khalid where he travelled to each summer.linebreaklinebreakIn a farewell speech to mark the end of Graeme’s term as Honorary Secretary in 2014, Ian Donaldson recalled Graeme coming home each year “with a trunk-load of field notes and precious Hellenistic artefacts which he displayed methodically on his office windowsill.”linebreaklinebreakGraeme will be remembered for the many outstanding contributions he made to the Academy over many decades, including as:linebreaklinebreakCouncil member (1976-77, 1985-94, 2000-2014)linebreakVice-President (1976-77, 1985-86)linebreakTreasurer (1986-94), andlinebreakHonorary Secretary (2000-2014).linebreaklinebreakIn addition to his devoted service to the Academy, he was also:linebreaklinebreakPresident of the Australian Society for Classical Studies (1976-78)linebreakCouncil Member of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (since 1982), andlinebreaka Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London (1989).linebreaklinebreakWe extend our sincerest condolences to Graeme’s family, his many friends and colleagues including those within the Secretariat and Council of the Academy. Graeme was an outstanding historian, exemplary colleague and leader in the Academy and his friendship, enthusiastic advocacy and the energy and service he devoted to advancing humanities in Australia will be sorely missed.linebreaklinebreak[A list of some of his publications is at <https://tinyurl.com/mryb9h75>]linebreaklinebreak