T. Leslie Shear

Theodore Leslie Shear (August 11, 1880 – July 3, 1945) was an American classical archaeologist, who directed excavations of the ancient Greek city of Corinth and the Agora of Athens.

Born in New London, New Hampshire, Shear was educated at New York University and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His doctoral thesis and several of his early publications focused on ancient Greek philosophy, but he gradually shifted his focus towards classical archaeology, following an early fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA). He excavated at Knidos and at Sardis, both in Asia Minor, before the First World War.

After wartime service as an officer in the Aviation Section of the U.S. Signal Corps, Shear returned to academia, moving to Princeton University in 1921 and making excavations on Mount Hymettus, near Athens, in 1924. He was made director of the ASCSA's excavations at Corinth in 1924, having negotiated a funding arrangement to allow their resumption which included the donation of $10,000 (equivalent to $183,000 in 2024) of his own money. He excavated there each season between 1925 and 1931, when he began conducting the ASCSA excavations in the Athenian Agora. These continued until the end of the 1940 season, when the Second World War forced their postponement. During the war, he assisted the Office of Strategic Services in its intelligence work. He died of a stroke in 1945, while on holiday at Lake Sunapee.

Shear's excavations in the Agora uncovered several of its structures, and were praised as a landmark in the scientific practice of archaeology; he was also credited with training many of America's classical archaeologists through his work at Corinth and in Athens. His two wives, Nora Jenkins and Josephine Platner, collaborated with him on his excavations, and his son, T. Leslie Shear, Jr., also served as director of the Agora excavations.