| Athanasios Sakellarios | |
| Native Name: | Αθανάσιος Σακελλάριος |
| Native Name Lang: | el |
| Birth Place: | Agios Petros, Morea Eyalet, Ottoman Empire |
| Death Place: | Athens, Kingdom of Greece |
| Occupation: | Educator, Folklorist, Scholar |
Athanasios Sakellarios (Greek: Αθανάσιος Σακελλάριος) (1826-1901) was a Greek educator, scholar and folklorist.[1] He is considered as the founder of Cyprological studies.[2]
Sakellarios was born in Agios Petros in Kynouria in 1826. He studied philology at the University of Athens. In 1876 he graduated with a PhD by the Leipzig University.
Between 1849 and 1854, he was the headmaster of the Greek High School of Larnaca (Σχολή της Λάρνακας). From 1854 to 1867 he taught at a school in Pireaus. Then he went to Athens where he taught at various schools, including Varvakeio. In 1887 he founded his own publishing house, that was continued by his descendants.
Sakellarios travelled extensively around Cyprus and recorded folk songs, games, proverbs, lullabies, myths and traditions.[3] Additionally, he recorded ancient inscriptions,[4] and visited various monuments, archaeological sites and ecclesiastical buildings offering descriptions of their arcitecture.[5] His years of work culminated in the edition of the monumental work Τα Κυπριακά (Ta Kypriaka). His first edition was intended to have three volumes, but he managed to publish only volume I (1855), on Cypriot history, geography, archaeology, and III (1868), on the Cypriot Dialect. Later he revised and expanded his work and published it for a second time in two volumes, I (1890) and II (1891).
Sakellarios married a Cypriot woman, Aggeliki Demetriou Michalopoulou (Αγγελική Δημητρίου Μιχαλοπούλου) from Larnaca.