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Ludwig Ross

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Posthumous portrait of Ross held by the University of Athens
Posthumous portrait of Ross held by the University of Athens

Ludwig Ross was a German archaeologist. He served as Greece's Ephor General of Antiquities between 1834 and 1836, during which he rediscovered and reconstructed the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis of Athens. He became close to king Otto of Greece, and accompanied the king on archaeological tours of the country. He later became the first professor of archaeology in the University of Athens, but was dismissed after a military coup which removed most non-Greeks from public service. He then moved to Halle, where he argued unsuccessfully against the reconstruction of the Indo-European language family, believing the Latin language to be a direct descendant of Ancient Greek. He has been called "one of the most important figures in the cultural revival of Greece". (Full article...)