Literature Review: Environmental History and the works of J. Donald Hughes

My MA dissertation is going to focus on regional and ecological differences in the Aegean Bronze Age, and as part of my preparations it was necessary to become familiar with some of the seminal works of environmental history. J. Donald Hughes was one of the individuals who helped to popularise the study of the environmental …

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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 …

Cross Cultural Connections in Ancient Egypt

My next task is to answer the question ‘“Egypt as a society was strongly xenophobic” Do you agree or disagree with statement? Provide evidence for your argument?’ I would argue that the reality is more complicated than saying whether the entirety of Egyptian society was xenophobic. The surviving evidence we have comes from a limited …

Achaean League Coinage and Collective Identity – Coin of the Month: September

I've been published elsewhere! I wrote a blog post for the Classics Department at the University of Warwick about Achaean coinage and collective identity. Click on the link below to access the article. https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/numismatics/entry/achaean_league_coinage/

A Variety of Podcasts

Listening to podcasts is a great way to expand your knowledge and to learn more about the world in an easy going manner. I've found some excellent podcasts about archaeology and the ancient world that I want to share with you. Some have wide ranging topics, others are much more specialised, but all of them …

What is Collective Identity?

I have previously written about identity in the ancient world, particularly at how individuals expressed their identity; identity being the qualities that make up a person, i.e. religion, citizenship, gender. With this project I looked at how communities developed their own identities with different groups, attempting to find common ground in order to thrive in …

What is the Achaean League and Why should we study it?

This summer I am working on another project for the International Conference for Undergraduate Research (ICUR), and this will be the first post dedicated to it. I have already written two articles over the past year about the Achaean League, but this is the first article that will set out the aims of the project …

Federalism in the Hellenistic Period

In another post based on my undergrad dissertation, I discuss the role of Achaean identity and the rise of federalism in the Hellenistic period. What does it mean to be a city in a world dominated by large kingdoms and how do you react to their domination? I have previously discussed how Achaea was able …

Examining Akrotiri

Sometimes natural disasters prove to be useful for archaeology, the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri offers a change to examine the lives of people from the Aegean Bronze Age, and to help to answer questions about the Thalassocracy of the Minoans. Akrotiri was a Bronze Age town destroyed by the volcano at Santorini in around …

The Early Achaean League 900 – 371 BC

“The Achaean League seems to have been, on the whole, a rather admirable institution. Its early history and development is, however, somewhat more complicated than I realised…”[1] The lack of certainty regarding the origins of how the Achaean League formed means most histories of Achaea mention Homer, the lack of poleis in the region until …