‘There ought to be some worthwhile ones’: The Bristol University ‘Cook Collection’ and Anatolia

Abstract

Between the late 1940s and the 1970s, John Manuel Cook was heavily involved in the archaeology of Anatolia. In 1976 he retired from the University of Bristol and the following year donated a collection of ceramics and other small finds procured during the course of his academic career. These form the core of the Bristol University Near Eastern and Mediterranean Collections (BUNEM). Despite Cook's extensive published record, the majority of these archaeological finds, which formed one of his primary archaeological datasets, never received any form of publication. This article reunites for the first time the Anatolian material donated by Cook to the University of Bristol in 1977 with his published record. In so doing, a glimpse can be gained into the methodologies employed in Anatolian field survey prior to the 1980s, and it will be suggested that collections such as this, despite their many associated difficulties, are a potentially useful source of archaeological data. Furthermore, this will allow some insight into how Cook reached the conclusions he did and consequently why his role in Anatolian archaeology should rightly be acknowledged.