Oscar White Muscarella
(1931–2022)

Oscar White Muscarella died on November 27, 2022, age 91, at his home in Pennsylvania. Oscar Muscarella was a talented and highly principled archaeologist, known for his crusades against the antiquities market, his many publications on the arts and archaeology of Greece and the ancient Near East, and his excavations in the USA, Turkey, and Iran.

Oscar received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Classical Archaeology (1965) and attended the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, as a Regular Member on a Fulbright scholarship (1958–1959). He was a curator and then Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he worked for 45 years (1964–2009). He was a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute, a member of the Columbia University Seminar on the Ancient Near East, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Field Archaeology and Source:
Notes in the History of Art. He received the James R. Wiseman Book Award from the Archaeological Institute of America (1990) for Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1988).

Born in New York, NY, on March 26, 1931, Oscar was the son of Oscar V.
White, an elevator operator, and Anna Falkin. Anna later married Salvatore (“Sam”) Muscarella, who adopted Oscar and his two brothers, Bobby and Ronnie. In 1942, the family moved to the Bronx, where a sister, Arline, was born. As the Muscarellas lacked for money, Oscar went to work at a young age, as an usher at the Bijou theater and a messenger boy for a copy shop; he also delivered newspapers and shined shoes. At age 14, he got a job as a vendor at the Polo Grounds, selling snacks on commission. In 1952, he lost his job there for his efforts to unionize the vendors and porters, which taught him “the power of corporate power” and set him on his path as a campaigner for justice that would persist for the rest of his life.

While working, Oscar took the test for the elite Stuyvesant High School and passed. He was a good student at Stuyvesant, joining the Archaeology Club and frequenting the New York Public Library to read up on travel and archaeology as well as history, literature, and philosophy; he also taught himself to draw. After graduating from high school, he attended New York University and then City College (evening session), graduating in history in 1955—while working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and discovering jazz. In 1953, he went on his first excavation, at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and in 1955 he excavated at Swan Creek, South Dakota. While at Swan Creek, he learned that he was accepted into the PhD program in Classical Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, with a fellowship, where he would study with Rodney S. Young.

In 1957, Oscar married Grace Freed, a fellow graduate student, and the two went to Gordion, Turkey, to excavate with Young. Their daughter Daphne was born in Athens in 1958 and their son Lawrence in New York in 1961. Oscar returned to Gordion in 1959 and 1963 and wrote his dissertation on Phrygian Fibulae from Gordion, which was published in 1967. While a student, he also excavated in Iran at Hasanlu (1960, 1962, and 1964), Agrab Tepe (1964), and Ziwiye (1964). He would later go on to work at Dinkha Tepe, Nush-i Jan, Sé Girdan, and Qalatgah in Iran, and Alişar Hüyük, Çadır Höyük, and Ayanis in Turkey. His excavation reports were promptly published, alongside an ever-increasing number of articles on specific types of artifacts, cultural interconnections, and the disastrous repercussions of the looting of archaeological sites.

Oscar’s curriculum vitae lists a total of 186 articles/reviews and seven books, including catalogues of objects in the Norbert Schimmel collection (1974) and the Lands of the Bible exhibition (1981), a catalogue of the ivories excavated at Hasanlu (1980), and a collection of many of his articles (Brill, 2013). What was once considered his most controversial book, The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures (2000), has become something of a cult classic, listing some 1,099 apparent forgeries and pastiches in private and museum collections, and detailing the corrupt practices of curators and collectors who buy unexcavated objects, conservators who “authenticate” them, and scholars who publish and legitimize such acquisitions (“the Forgery Culture,” “the Museum Ritual,”). Oscar was one of a very few archaeologists who dared discuss this problem in print. Once taboo, the topic of forgeries of ancient artifacts—and of entire ancient cultures—has become a subject of interest and concern to archaeologists, and the importance of the protection of sites is now understood by all. The Lie Became Great has been translated into Farsi and published in Iran (2019), winning two book awards to date.

Oscar’s propensity for speaking out against museum corruption led to his firing from the Metropolitan Museum—three times by Director Thomas Hoving. The first (1971–1972) involved a letter he had written to Douglas Dillon, then president of the museum, complaining about the curators’ low salaries, discrepancies between the salaries of male and female curators, and the lack of academic freedom; in addition, he had been trying to organize the junior curators on staff. He fought back, retaining the law firm of Kunstler, Kunstler & Hyman, and managed to stay on. However, 1972 was the year in which the museum bought the Euphronios krater, looted from an Etruscan tomb near Cerveteri, Italy, which Oscar condemned, with a quote in The New York Times. He was fired again by Hoving in 1973, and then again in 1974, but he eventually won his case, based on the report of fact-finder Harry Rand, and he was reinstated as Senior Research Fellow. It goes without saying that Oscar was fully exonerated, not only by the legal system, but also within his profession. The Euphronios krater was returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum in 2008. The museum world was put on notice, and many illegally exported artifacts have now been returned to their countries of origin.

Outgoing, clever, funny, and kind, Oscar had many friends—in his personal life, among his colleagues, and at the Metropolitan Museum, including employees of all ranks and especially the museum guards. He also had his detractors. He could be blunt and belligerent, offending those with whom he did not agree. But he was respected even by people who did not like him, who sought him out for his opinions, with his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient art and culture and his honesty and utter lack of pretension. In turn, he acknowledged the strengths of his adversaries. Much more could be said about this complex character and his impressive body of work. He liked to quote Sherlock Holmes, his favorite detective: “I never guess; it is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty,” and “It is an error to argue in front of your data; you find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.” Oscar spent a lifetime compiling data, sorting it out, and then drawing his conclusions, which were published with flair. He said his ideas came to him, presenting him with a problem, which he then attacked with relish, seeking the ultimate truth.

Elizabeth Simpson, Professor Emerita, Bard Graduate Center, New York, NY