Bert Hodge Hill

Bert Hodge Hill was born on March 7, 1874 in Bristol, Vermont to Carrie Emily Hodge and Alson Collins Hill. He received his AB from the University of Vermont in 1895. He was principal at the Newport Academy in Newport, Vermont from 1895-1895. He obtained his MA from Columbia University in 1900.

He attended the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (ASCSA) in 1901 as a Driser Fellow of Columbia University. He continued at the school as a Fellow of the Archeological Institute of America for two years (1902-1903). He moved back to the United States where he was Assistant Curator of Classical Antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts and Lecturer in Greek Sculpture at Wellesley College.

He then returned to ASCSA and served as director of the school for the next twenty years, from 1906 to 1926. As director, he supervised the Corinth excavations where his focus was the springs of Peirene, Glauke and the Sacred Spring. He also participated in the study of the monuments of the Athenian Akropolis, specifically the Erechtheum and the Parthenon.

He was director of the University of Pennsylvania's Archeological Expedition in Cyprus at the excavations of Lapithos and Kourion in 1932 and from 1934 to 1952. He also was a Charlest Eliot Norton Lecturer of the Archeological Institute of America.

He had a scholarly interest in architecture, sculpture, and topography, and was involved in research of epigraphy.

Hill married archeologist Ida Carleton Thallon (Ida Hill) in 1924. In 1929, the couple moved into a house at 9 Ploutarchou Street in Athens with archeologist Carl Blegen and his wife Elizabeth Pierce Blegen. Their home became a popular meeting place for archeologists, students of all foreign schools, diplomats, Vassar alumnae, Greek scholars, Fulbright scholars, and the staff of the American embassy.

During World War II, Hill remained in Athens to look after the home on Ploutarchou Street while Ida Hill moved to the United States with the Blegens for the duration of the war.He volunteered with the Red Cross in Greece during World Wars I and II and served on the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission in the 1920's.

Ida Hill died at sea on a return voyage to Athens in 1954, with Elizabeth Blegen at her side.. Hill died in 1958 in Athens. Elizabeth Blegen died in 1966. Carl Blegen died in 1971.The four archeologists and friends are buried next to each other in the First Cemetery of Athens.