The death of Jim Lang has deprived the North of one of its best known and most congenial early medieval archaeologists. Over his career he moved from his early specialism in English to a full-time commitment to pre-Conquest archaeology, and in particular the study of sculpture.
Because he was a generous, unpretentious person, it would be easy to underestimate the impact, as well as the range, of his contribution to scholarship. He wrote the definitive account of the hogback monuments of Britain, but swiftly followed this by exploring, in a series of seminal articles, the themes of continuity and tradition in Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture, and the distinctiveness of Viking colonial art. His work on decorated wood from various medieval excavations in Dublin took him forward in time and extended his range of interests within the Irish Sea province. In his writings of the last decade, and the five articles still forthcoming, he turned his mind more to the late antique legacy in sculpture and to early Christian iconography. The last six months of his working life were mainly spent in the completion of the North Yorkshire volume of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Sculpture - his volume on York and Eastern Yorkshire had been published in 1991 - and only when this was finished did he finally submit to the illness he had so calmly and cheerfully endured.
Probably because of his enthusiasm, and the generosity he displayed in listening to other people's ideas and freely giving his own, he was an inspired and much loved teacher, to school children at historic sites, his university students, and adult education classes alike. James Thomas Lang: born August 1935; educated
Durham University (English lang/ lit); English teacher, 1959-65 Malet Lambert School, Hull, 1965-68 Chester College of Education; English lecturer, 1968-85 Neville's Cross College, Durham; part- time lecturer in archaeology, 1968-85 University of Durham; Education Officer, English Heritage (Northern Region) 1985-89, Inspector and Senior Inspector 1989-95; Visiting Professor, Department of Archaeology, York 1994; FSA 1981; died January 1997.
Rosemary Cramp is Emerita Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1997