Martin Persson Nilsson was a Swedish philologist, mythographer, and a scholar of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman religious systems. In his prolific studies he combined the literary evidence with the archaeological evidence, linking historic and prehistoric evidence for the evolution of the Greek mythological cycles.

Beginning in 1900 as a tutor at the University of Lund, he was appointed Secretary to the Swedish Archaeological Commission working in Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, in 1905. In 1909 he was appointed Professor of Ancient Greek, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund. Later, Nilsson was Secretary of the Royal Society of Letters in Lund and an Associate of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities also called simply the Royal Academy of Letters, abbreviated KVHAA is the Swedish royal academy for the Humanities.Its many publications include the archaeological and art historical journal Fornvännen, published since 1906.The Academy...

, in Stockholm. In 1924 he was made a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences

Prussian Academy of Sciences

The Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academy established in Berlin on 11 July 1700, four years after the Akademie der Künste or "Arts Academy", to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer.-Origins:...

.

Nilsson's best-known work in German is Geschichte der griechischen Religion in the Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, which went through several editions. Nilsson had previously published it under the title Den grekiska religionens historia (1922). In English his Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, and Its Survival in Greek Religion is more often quoted. Other important works include:

• Primitive time-reckoning; a study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples
• The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press) 1932 (On-line text) This work had its origins in the Sather Classical Lectures.
• Homer and Mycenae (London: Methuen) 1933.
• Primitive Religion 1934.
• "Early Orphism and Kindred Religious Movements" Harvard Theological Review 28 (1935):180-230.
• The Age of the Early Greek Tyrants (Belfast) 1936. The Dill Memorial Lecture)
• Greek Popular Religion (New York:Columbia University Press) 1940. (On-line text)
• Greek Folk Religion. Reprinted with a foreword by Arthur Darby Nock, 1972.
• Den grekiska religionens historia, 1922 (republished in German translation as Geschichte der griechischen Religion in Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft)
• Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, and Its Survival in Greek Religion (Lund:Gleerup) Revised 2nd ed. 1950.
• The Bacchic Mysteries in Italy See also "The Bacchic Mysteries in the Roman Age" Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953):175-202
• Cults, Myths, Oracles, and Politics in Ancient Greece (Studies in Mediterranean Archeology)
• Greek Piety (Norton/Oxford University Press) 1969.
• The historical Hellenistic background of the New Testament (The Bedell lecture, Kenyon college)

Further reading

• Einar Gjerstad, Martin P. Nilsson im memoriam. (Gleerup, Lund) 1968. (With Erik Johan Knudtzon, et al. Bibliographie Martin P. Nilsson.
• John Granlund, "Martin Persson Nilsson (1874–1967)" 'in Dag Strömbäck (ed.) Leading folklorists of the North (Oslo) 1971:135–170.

External links

• About the Bookplate of Martin P. Nilsson