If you're looking for something to listen to as we start 2023, have a look at the Radio 3 Free Thinking episode I recorded back in October, which is still available through the BBC website. There's also still plenty of time to catch the British Museum exhibition Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt referred to in the... Continue Reading →
New module – the History of Writing in the Ancient Mediterranean
Developing and teaching new modules is probably one of my favourite parts of my job. It doesn't come around very often, and it's hugely fun to think about presenting cutting-edge research to undergraduates, who are so open to new ideas and take them to pieces very effectively. So I was very excited to be asked,... Continue Reading →
Italy Before Rome out this week
I'm very pleased to say that my new sourcebook, Italy Before Rome, is out on Friday. If you want to use the discount code below, which is valid until the end of 2021, then you can order direct from the publisher on this link: https://routledge.pub/ItalyBeforeRome So you can get an idea of what the book... Continue Reading →
Digital Italy Part 2
On Tuesday, we held the second half of the Digital Italy seminar. Like last time, I wanted to post a links round-up so that people can find these great projects and resources and see how they develop over the coming years. Luca Rigobianco (Venice) - Building a digital corpus and a computational lexicon of the... Continue Reading →
Digital Italy Part 1
It was a real treat to host the first part of our Digital Italy seminar from my new office in Durham. We had participants and speakers from all over the world today, and we heard about a range of new and existing digital projects linked to ancient Italy. This post serves as a link round-up,... Continue Reading →
The mystery of Etruscan 4 and 6
This week is all about numbers (specifically the number 270). As we all sit here waiting for the counting to happen, I thought I'd share one of the most intriguing little pieces of detective work in Etruscan studies: the number system. As we've discussed before, it's not difficult to read Etruscan - we know what... Continue Reading →
New books on pre-Roman Italy you should read
Over the last few years, the field has been hugely enriched by lots of innovative new books on pre-Roman Italy and its populations. Many of them have really committed to interdisciplinary methods, combining historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence - with great results. Even better, these books are perfect to set for undergraduate reading (if you... Continue Reading →
Heatwave archaeology
The UK (and many other areas of the world) has been experiencing a prolonged heatwave this summer. Some love it, and some hate it, but it's clearly been fantastic for archaeologists. In the dry weather, grass and crops dry out at different rates depending on what the soil underneath is like - where there was... Continue Reading →
Reblogged: The epigraphic gallery of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples is now open!
This recent post by my 'Greek in Italy' colleague Nick Zair shares the (very exciting!) news that the epigraphy room of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale is open for business again. To give some context to this, I've visited this room about three times. The first time was in 2009, when I was told it was closed... Continue Reading →
How I draw inscriptions
First of all - happy second birthday, blog! The blog is now regularly getting 2000 readers a month which - let's be honest - is a lot more people than have read my book in the same period, and that's why I love blogging. It's been great to publish my work in different ways and... Continue Reading →