For his son, John Nowell Linton Myres, also a British archaeologist, see Nowell Myres. For the British radio executive, consultant and presenter, see John Myers (radio executive).
In 1894, Myres participated in the British Museum's excavations at Amathus on Cyprus; he also excavated for the BSA, with the assistance of the Cyprus Exploration Fund, various sites such as Kalopsida, Laxia tou Riou, Kition and the Bronze Age site of Ayia Paraskevi. Myres gave his share of the finds to the University of Oxford, where they form a large part of the Cypriot collection of the Ashmolean Museum.[5] In 1899, Myres published the first catalogue of the Cyprus Museum, in collaboration with the German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter.[6] He founded the anthropological journal Man and was its first editor from 1901 to 1903.[7] He was considered as a possible director of the BSA to replace Robert Carr Bosanquet, who resigned in 1905, but was ultimately discounted: his fellow unsuccessful candidate Duncan Mackenzie wrote that a "Cambridge combine" had acted to prevent the appointment of an Oxford-based candidate.[4]: 56
During the First World War, Myres served in Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as part of the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty. He was given command of three former civilian vessels – a motorised caïque (fishing boat), a tugboat and a former royal yacht – which he used to raid along the Turkish shore of the Aegean Sea, stealing cattle to prevent them from being shipped to Germany.[9]: 166–167 During one such raid, he captured around 2000 cattle. Myres's raids earned him the nickname "the Blackbeard of the Aegean": Francis Elliot, the British minister in Athens, complained about them to John de Robeck, Myres's naval superior, who dismissed the complaint as "extremely silly". According to Myres's subordinates, his operations attracted the commitment of 6,000 Ottoman troops; he received the Order of the British Empire and the Greek Order of George I for his service, and was promoted to lieutenant commander.[9]: 167
In 1916, Myres claimed to have discovered that the German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand was using his house near the Temple of Apollo at Didyma as an armoury, in which a German armourer was refitting rifles smuggled there from Greece for Ottoman service. Myres reported the matter to the Royal Navy, which tasked a destroyer to bombard and destroy the house: Myres flew in one of the two aircraft spotting for the ship, with responsibility for ordering a halt to the bombardment if the temple were in danger of damage.[9]: 167 In 1917, he suggested that the BSA be used as a formal institution of British intelligence: his proposal was initially welcomed by the Foreign Office, but by early 1918 had been rejected by both that organisation and the BSA's managing committee.[9]: 172–173
Professor Myres, whilst he teaches Greek language and literature as the modern man would have them taught, and is a learned archaeologist to boot, yet can have no greater title to our respect than that, of many devoted helpers, he did the most to organize an effective school of Anthropology in the University of Oxford.
He was a major influence on the British-Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.[14] The Myres Archive is located in the Ashmolean Museum.[15]
^ abGill, David (2011). Sifting the Soil of Greece: The Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886–1919). Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements. Vol. 111. London: Institute of Classical Studies. pp. iii–474. ISBN9781905670321. JSTOR44214938.
^ abcdClogg, Richard (2009). "Academics at War: The British School at Athens During the First World War". In Llewellyn Smith, Michael; Kitromilides, Paschalis M.; Calligas, Eleni (eds.). Scholars, Travels, Archives: Greek History and Culture through the British School at Athens. British School at Athens Studies. Vol. 17. London: The British School at Athens. pp. 163–177. ISBN9780904887600. JSTOR40960681.
^Evans, Arthur; Lang, Andrew; Murray, Gilbert; Jevons, Frank Byron; Myres, John Linton; Fowler, William Warde (1908). "Preface by R. R. Marett". In Marett, R. R. (ed.). Anthropology and the Classics: Six lectures delivered before the University of Oxford. Clarendon Press. ISBN9780790558226.