On his return to England in 1955, Boardman took up the post of Assistant Keeper at the
Ashmolean Museum in
Oxford, thus beginning his lifelong affiliation with it. In 1959 he was appointed
Reader in Classical Archaeology in the
University of Oxford, and in 1963 was appointed a Fellow of
Merton College. There he remained until his appointment as
Lincoln Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, a position previously held by
John Beazley, and the concomitant Fellowship of
Lincoln College in 1978. He was knighted in 1989 and retired in 1994, and was thereafter Emeritus Professor. Boardman was a
Fellow of the British Academy, from which he received the
Kenyon Medal in 1995. He was awarded the
Onassis Prize for Humanities in 2009. He was an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and of Merton and Lincoln Colleges in Oxford, as well as the holder of many other academic distinctions. He carried out archaeological excavations at many sites, including in
Smyrna, Crete,
Emporio on
Chios and at
Tocra in Libya. His voluminous publications focus primarily on the art and architecture of
ancient Greece, particularly sculpture,
engraved gems and painted vases. Boardman wrote the book
The Greeks Overseas, on the ancient
Greek diaspora throughout the Mediterranean, in which Greek populations from the
Aegean region, Greek coastal mainland and Western Turkey settled the coastal regions of Italy, North Africa, southern France, reaching as far as southern Spain. The book has now undergone four editions, as new archaeological research emerges. ==Selected publications==