Robinson earned his
A.B. (1898) and
Ph.D. (1904) at the
University of Chicago. Robinson served on the faculty of
Johns Hopkins University (1905-1947).[4] After his retirement, which also marked a falling out with Johns Hopkins, he moved to the Department of Classics at the
University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi.[5][6] Many ancient objects from Robinson's collection were donated to the University of Mississippi and now constitute the David M. Robinson Memorial Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities.[7] His collection of papyri and manuscripts were given in his will to colleague
William Hailey Willis.[8]
In addition to the excavations at Olynthus, he participated in archaeological excavations at ancient
Corinth (1902) and
Sardis (1910), as well as
Pisidian Antioch (1924).
Robinson published his findings at Olynthus in a 14-volume series, Excavations at Olynthus, most of which he wrote himself. However, it has since been proved that he plagiarized the work of his student
Mary Ross Ellingson, and he has been accused of plagiarizing at least three other students as well. It has been shown that he published Ellingson's master's thesis and doctoral dissertation in volumes VII and XIV of Excavations at Olynthus as his own work.[3][15]
Publications
1904. Ancient Sinopea. University of Chicago (dissertation).[16]
1924. Sappho & Her Influence on Ancient and Modern Literature[17]
1930. with C. G. Harcum and J. H. Iliffe. A Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press.
1929-1952. David M Robinson; George E Mylonas. Excavations at Olynthus. (Johns Hopkins University studies in archaeology, no. 6, 9, 11-12, 18-20, 25-26, 31-32, 36, 38-39.) 14 v. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
1934-1938. with S. E. Freeman and M. McGehee. The Robinson Collection, Baltimore, Md.(Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America fasc. 4, 6-7.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
^"Robinson, David Moore." Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 963-64.
^*
George E. Mylonas: Necrology in College Art Journal 18.1 (Autumn, 1958), p. 76.
^
abKaiser, Alan. Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal: The Long-Suppressed Story of One Woman's Discoveries and the Man Who Stole Credit for Them. New York; London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
^University of Chicago (1915).
The University Record. University of Chicago Press. pp. 129–.