The department kept the ball rolling in Spring 2022 with new impactful publications!
Our archaebotanist, Erica Rowan, began the season by contributing to ScienceNews on ancient smells and ‘smell-scapes’ in the Roman world (picture a small tavern in Pompeii after a hot summer’s day). Rowan also has even more exciting publication news with an entry on ‘Food and Drink’ in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. To read some of Rowan’s work, see the open-access ‘Intestinal Parasitic Infection in the Roman Empire’.
(Super)heroes have been a big theme in the department this semester. Zena Kamash (RHUL), Leen Van Broeck (RHUL research associate, PhD alumna & TORCH) and Katy Soar (RHUL visiting lecturer & Winchester) kicked us off with their forthcoming, Comics and Archaeology. Marvellously sticking to the theme, Nick Lowe also published the open-access ‘How to Become a Hero’ in the edited volume ‘Our Mythical Hope: The Ancient Myths as Medicine for the Hardships of Life in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture’.
Houses and households in the ancient world continued to be outstanding departmental strengths. Building on the ‘Between Words and Walls: Material and Textual Approaches to Housing in the Graeco-Roman World’ conference (Birkbeck), all the way back in 2013, Richard Alston and Hannah Platts have contributed towards the edited volume ‘Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches’. Alston contributed ‘Spaces of Desire: Houses, Households and Social Reproduction in the Roman World’ and co-authored the volume’s ‘Introduction’, whilst Platts contributed ‘Experiencing Sense, Place and Space in the Roman Villa’.
Last and certainly not least, our third-year Classical Archaeology and Ancient History student Zac worked with Chertsey Museum to explore the connections between a naught schoolboy called William, and a hideous monster made of old body parts. What could it be? Our local Borough of Runnymede, of course!
