Early History
Born in 1911 in Porth in the Rhondda Valley, Griffiths was educated at Porth Grammar school before reading Latin at University College, Cardiff of the University of Wales, gaining a first class degree in 1932. He then graduated with a first class degree in Greek in 1933, and obtained a first class teacher's diploma in 1934. He obtained an M.A. degree at Liverpool University on the influence of Ancient Egypt on Greek religion in the Mycenean period. Between 1936 and 1937 he was an archaeological assistant with the Egyptian Exploration Society at Sesebi, Lower Nubia. Having studied at Queen's College, Oxford from 1936 to 1939 he obtained a D.Phil degree from Oxford University on the quarrel of Horus and Seth in 1949.
At Oxford Griffiths met Käte Bosse-Griffiths, a German-born refugee of German and Jewish ancestry, who shared academic and literary interests with him and was a scholar in Egyptology; later she became Keeper of Archaeology at Swansea Museum. They married on 13 September 1939 and set up home in 14 St. Stephen's Avenue, Pentre, Rhondda.
Griffiths' writing was influenced by the European avant-garde movement, especially that of Dadaist Kurt Schwitters. Griffiths, along with his wife, set up a writing and intellectual circle in the Rhondda for like-minded thinkers. The group, named the Cadwgan Circle (Cylch Cadwgan), had a membership of the finest writers in the Welsh language the Rhondda had ever produced, including Rhydwen Williams, Euros Bowen, Pennar Davies and J. Kitchener Davies.
Read more about this topic: J. Gwyn Griffiths
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