William (Bill) Culican

Who was William (Bill) Culican?

William Culican was an Australian archaeologist and lecturer in `Biblical Archaeology’ and `Pre-Classical Antiquity’ at the University of Melbourne.

Born at New Barn Farm, Great Harwood, Lancashire, he read classics and archaeology at Edinburgh University after a period in the Army, then won a scholarship to Queen’s College, Oxford. His studies centered on Egyptian, Mediterranean and middle eastern subjects, and he learned Sumerian and Akkadian. He came to Australia and obtained a position as lecturer in Semitic studies at the University of Melbourne in 1960, senior lecturer in 1964, transferred to the department of history in 1966, and became reader in 1972. He was a foundation member of the Humanities Research Council and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1965 he founded the Archaeological Society of Victoria which evolved into the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria.

In 1967 and '68, Culican and John Taylor along with students, family and friends undertook excavations on the Fossil Beach Cement Works site near Mornington, Victoria. Perhaps unusual for archaeologists, the resulting monograph was published within a couple of years. This may be the first historical archaeological excavation in Australia. Culican's 'modest' report was undertaken in the spirit that not to do so would be a "dereliction of archaeological duty", despite one visiting nun remarking of the site that "It is no Ur of the Chaldees."