Research Diary – 25/05/2020 – 31/05/2020

It's all Greek to me... Refining my MA dissertation has been an ongoing task throughout the year, some of my ideas have already been posted my blog (here, here and here). This week marked the end of my taught units with my last exam (Intensive Greek), and the start of intensive research. This research diary …

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Read and Review – Thrace, control and social complexity

Having nearly completed my Egyptian Module, I have discovered I really enjoy the 'Read and Review' format. So, as part of my mini-dissertation provisionally entitled, 'How did the Odrysian Kingdom use its physical and cultural geography to maintain control of its subjects during the reigns of Sitalkes and Seuthes (431-407)?', I had to complete a literature …

Read and Review – Dr Katharina Zinn | Literacy in Pharaonic Egypt (2018)

For this week’s task I have to review Katharina Zinn’s article ‘Literacy in Pharaonic Egypt: orality and literacy between agency and memory (2018)’ in 250 words. I include her abstract below: “The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in ancient civilisations to conceptualise ‘literacy’ more broadly as a cultural and social practice. …

Achaea and Rome: 192 B.C. – 146 B.C.

“Rome was simply too powerful. Yet Achaia could not accept the discrepancy in power without abandoning all pretence of independence.”[1] This post is based on part of my undergraduate dissertation. It deals with the relationship between the Achaean League and Rome, and how due to the changing nature of Roman foreign policy and the increasingly …

Justice in Egypt

This week’s task is as follows: “You have been provided with a translation of a papyrus known as the Slave Sale Papyrus, dating to the early 19th Dynasty translated by Dr Nicky Nielsen. Read the text carefully and provide an overview of the court-case – who is suing whom and why? Who are the main …

Watch and Review – Dr Susanne Paulus | Debts, Crime, and Prison: Daily Life in Babylonia CA. 1200 BC

This next task was to review a lecture given by Dr Susanne Paulus, given at the Oriental Institute of Chicago in April 2018. The subject of this lecture is the side of the ancient world that is often obscured from us, the dark backstreet deals, the crimes and the punishments. Paulus’ aim is to open …

Two Arches, Two Emperors

A discussion of the Triumphal Arches of Augustus and Septimus Severus, located in the Forum Romanum The Forum Romanum was seen as the centre of the Roman World. During the principate the political centre shifted away from the forum, but the symbolism of it remained, especially during the Triumphal processions. The Triumph was a religious …

Lycian Social Hierarchy – Tombs as sources

The social hierarchy of Lycia is very hard to reconstruct, since the surviving evidence is limited to coins issued by the dynasts, tombs (of which few can be said to belong to those of the lower strata) (Keen (1998) 34) and scraps written by Greek and Roman historians. Due to the nature of this evidence …

The Prima Porta Augustus and policy

The Prima Porta Augustus is often seen as the cover model (literally: Zanker (1980, 2001 print); Southern (2014, 2nd edition); Goldsworthy (2014)) of Augustus’ reign and all that it represents. The highly decorated statue was found 12km north of Rome in the Villa of Livia, Augustus’ wife. Current thought suggests that it was a marble …

The urban development of Rome in the Republic 400-100 BC

“Some would poke fun at their manners and customs, others at their achievements, others at the appearance of the city itself, which was not yet made beautiful in either its public or its private sections” – Livy, 40.5.7. This was the opinion of a Macedonian nobleman around 182 BC, and shows how some of the …