Jack L. Davis

Jack L. Davis is Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology the University of Cincinnati.

Davis has directed archaeological regional studies projects in Greece on the island of Keos, in the Nemea Valley, and in the area of the Palace of Nestor in Messenia. He participated in the publication of excavations on Keos and on Melos and is an authority in the archaeology of the Aegean islands. Other research interests include the history and archaeology of Ottoman and early modern Greece and the history of Classical archaeology, in particular its relationship to nationalist movements in the Balkans. Davis has co-directed regional studies and excavations in Albania, in the hinterlands of the ancient Greek colonies of Durrachium/Epidamnos and Apollonia.

His books include: Papers in Cycladic Prehistory; Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands; A Guide to the Palace of Nestor, Mycenaean Sites in Its Environs, and the Hora Museum; Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience, and – more recently - The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, edited with John Bennet. 

Davis served as Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 2007 until 2012. Since 2015 he has been codirecting renewed excavations at the Palace of Nestor. In 2020 Davis received the Gold Medal for achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America, the highest award granted by his professional organization.