Past Perfect: Among Syrian Ruins

Howard Crosby Butler (1872–1922) was a quintessential Princeton man. He organized the Tiger Inn dining club as an undergraduate, and he later received a graduate fellowship in archaeology after a stint at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. A popular architectural history professor at Princeton for more than 20 years, Butler was named the first director of the new School of Architecture in 1920. He organized three photographic expeditions to Syria (in 1899, 1904 and 1909) that documented hundreds of late Roman and early Byzantine structures. In these photos, Butler deliberately made use of the desert’s harsh […]