College Record 2019

Caramanian plates in the
Colin Kraay Room
by Dr Ellen Rice (Fellow Archivist)
The President and Governing Body decided to change the name of the President’s
Private Dining Room to ‘the Colin Kraay Room’. His collection of lithographs and
matching plates graces its walls.
Colin Kraay (1918–82) was a founding Fellow of the College and Keeper of the
Heberden Coin Room (1975–82). His wife Margaret (Peggy) gave a talk on 19 June 1994
about the collection, which she presented to the College in memory of her husband.
Their son, Tim, was invited by the President to this year’s Iffley Dinner, at which Chris
Howgego spoke about his father.
Here is a description of one of the scenes depicted in both plate and print (‘The Castle
of Boudron in the Gulf of Stancio’), based upon notes by Peggy Kraay.
The medieval Castle of St Peter, built by the Knights of St John from 1402, dominates the
entrance of the natural harbour of Bodrum (ancient Halicarnassus) in southwest Turkey.
It is depicted on the print and plate, where the headless male statue and the sculptures
on the walls indicate earlier remains, those of the famous Mausoleum which once stood
above the harbour. This was the great tomb built in the fourth century BC by Queen
Artemisia of Caria for her husband King Mausolus, whence comes the modern term
‘mausoleum’. The Knights quarried its ruins for their building materials. Parts of the frieze
and some of the lions were thus preserved, by being used to adorn the Castle.
MEMORIES OF WOLFSON
The Mausoleum stood halfway up the hill, in the middle of a spacious square, and was
the most magnificent tomb of Antiquity, one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’. Its
pyramid was surmounted by a quadriga (a four-horse chariot) which would have been a
landmark far out to sea.
Seventeen slabs of the frieze of the Mausoleum are now in the British Museum. Their
subject matter is continuous and represents the war between the Greeks and Amazons.
Over-lifesized statues probably of Mausolus and Artemisia, and other architectural
elements, are also displayed in the Museum.
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