Author Archives: amycsmith

Humanities scholars shine in UoR’s Observe the Moon Night

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We hope that many of you enjoyed an excellent view of the full ‘harvest’ moon last month. The University of Reading community welcomed this moon a few days earlier, on Saturday 14th September, as part of NASA’s International Observe the Moon Night. When asked why they had chosen to observe the waxing or growing moon, a few days before its fullness, James O’Donoghue, Associate Professor in Planetary Astronomy, explained that we wanted to be able to view the surface of the moon emerging from the dark side of the moon, which is best done a few days before the new moon. On the night, hundreds of visitors, staff and students enjoyed viewing the moon through telescopes on a clear night, supported by the University of Reading’s Meteorology Department and Astronomy Club.

International Observe the Moon Night celebrates the cultural impact the Moon has had throughout history as well as lunar observation and science, so James reached out to colleagues in Humanities who might like to talk about their moon-related research. Four members of the school of Humanities shared their research: Dr Tony Capstick (English Language and Applied Linguistics), Prof. Anne Lawrence-Mathers (History), Cong Xia Li (Department of Languages and Cultures) and our own Prof. Amy Smith (Classics), who spoke about The Moon in Ancient Athens’ Festival Calendar. Ancient Greeks used the phases of the moon to time their festivals and started each month with a new moon. Amy’s current research involves the material evidence of Athenian festivals so this gave her an opportunity to think and talk about the rare personifications and other images of the moon and months in Athenian art.

Another part of the evening’s programme took us virtually to Mediterranean, specifically to view the Moon live from Cyprus, for a ‘Remote Observation’ of the Moon with Agapios Elia in discussion with David Arditti, the British Astronomical Association‘s President.

The full programme for the evening is here. As it turns out the event was booked out almost immediately, but you can catch up with it on a YouTube broadcast hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society.

Aphrodite’s first birthplace

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Prof. Smith on 'Aphrodite's Isle', Cranae, near Gythio.

Prof. Smith on ‘Aphrodite’s Isle’, Cranae, near Gythio.

On the summer solstice, Prof Amy Smith made her first visit to the island of Kythera, Aphrodite’s first ‘birthplace’ according to Hesiod. During this visit coincidentally Amy’s latest article, Aphrodite signified more than beauty, appeared in The Conversation. Amy’s visit to Kythera is part of the Summer Session of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, which she is co-directing, as Gertrude Smith Professor, with Prof Amelia Brown (University of Queensland). Amelia and Amy took their students to Kythera en route to Crete and on the return yesterday visited another ‘Isle’ sacred to Aphrodite, Cranae, now home to a Greek naval lighthouse, where in antiquity Helen & Paris are rumoured to have sojourned en route to Egypt.

Profs. Brown and Smith are keen to enthuse their students with the subjects of their own research, which coincidentally intersect on Aphrodite, but also the depth and breadth of physical information — sites and artefacts as well as geography — that evidence the history and archaeology of Greece. This 6-week programme also provides students a chance to learn from the many other archaeologists, curators, conservators and other experts working on site over the summer months.

Profs Brown & Smith with ASCSA Summer Session 2024 students at Mochlos, with its excavator Dr Giorgos Doudalas (UNC Greensboro)

Profs Brown & Smith with ASCSA Summer Session 2024 students at Mochlos, with its excavator Dr Giorgos Doudalas (UNC Greensboro)

You may find some of Prof. Smith’s other work on Aphrodite here:

Classics students shine at UROP showcase

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At the UROP Showcase this Wednesday, people from across the University and the wider community had the opportunity to learn about the work that 100+ students did as part of University of Reading’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme, aka UROP. Each of the selected students was paid for a 6-week experience conducting real research for academics from across the University’s four themes. The three Classics projects noted below, working within the Heritage & Creativity theme, received funding and recruited select first- and second-year students to work with them. At the showcase each UROP student presented a poster explaining their research projects and discussed the results with interested persons.

In the Company of Monsters: New Visions, Ancient Myths. Shona Carter-Griffiths (shown above) and Megan Davies worked with Profs. Emma Aston and Andrew Mangham (English) in preparation of the labels and text for their exhibition currently on display at the Reading Museum, which project uses contemporary visual art to investigate the power of ancient mythology to engage modern audiences and to explore contemporary themes of identity and diversity.

Athenian Festival ware in the Ure Museum Lorena Rodriguez-Tunon (shown right) collected and analyses examples in Reading’s Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology of black-figure ceramics created and used as festival ware in ancient Athens. This was a testbed for a larger project for which Prof. Amy Smith and her collaborator Dr Katerina Volioti (Roehampton) are currently seeking funding.

Public interactions with Lowbury Hill. Working with Summer Courts and Prof. Amy Smith on the Mymerian Project (https://research.reading.ac.uk/mymerian/), Georgia Spriggs (left) gathered, analysed, and interpreted trends in modern and contemporary public perceptions of the archaeology and history of Lowbury Hill, Oxfordshire, through research in archives and print media, in preparation of a journal article on the subject. Stay tuned for this and other outputs!

When we popped by the showcase we caught we caught Dr Sally Fletcher from the British Museum interrogating Shona and Megan, while Georgia was discussing her project with Janice Galvin from the Alumni Office: she was particularly interested in Georgia’s work on Lowbury Hill because this year the University Alumni funded Georgia’s work! We are very proud of grateful to our students and delighted that they all found their research work so fulfilling. The UROP calendar has just begun again and staff are encouraged to dream up exciting projects on which students might research in Summer 2024.

Véronique Dasen delivers the James E. Gordon Lecture

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Prof. Dasen & Prof. Smith

Profs. Véronique Dasen (Gordon lecturer) and Amy Smith (Ure Curator)

On 16 October 2023, the Ure Museum was delighted to welcome Prof. Véronique Dasen from University of Fribourg to deliver the James E. Gordon Lecture. Professor Véronique Dasen is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Fribourg, Honorary Professor at the University of Lille, and Vice-President of the Conseil Scientifique Institut National d‘Histoire de l’Art, Paris. Her multidisciplinary research, which takes an anthropological perspective, concerns ancient iconography and material culture as it relates to the history of the body, medicine and of magical practices, gender studies, history of childhood and play as metaphor.

In her lecture, Play or cheat? Games in Greek and Roman antiquity, Prof. Dasen introduced and explained fascinating discoveries from her Locus Ludi project, funded by the European Research Council, 2017-22. Her lecture culminated with the launch of an exciting new video on ‘loaded’ Roman dice currently undergoing scientific analyses.

The annual Gordon lecture honours the memory of Professor James Edward Gordon (1913–1998), his interdisciplinary spirit and enthusiasm for the relevance of science to our understanding of the ancient world. Prof Gordon was a pioneering materials scientist and biomechanical engineer who served as Professor of Materials Engineering at University of Reading, where he collaborated, especially with the late Dr John Landels, on engineering in antiquity. Together with Landels he established a joint degree in Classics and Engineering. 

Visitors play a reconstruction of the Doctor's Grave in the Ure Museum.

Visitors play a reconstruction of the Doctor’s Grave in the Ure Museum.

This year’s Gordon Lecture coincided with a special viewing of the Ure Museum’s temporary exhibit, Locus Ludi. Anyone can play! — with loans from the British Museum, Colchester Museum, Museum of Reading, and University of Reading collections — on display until the end of November. In the Ure Museum, visitors also had a chance to play a full-size reconstruction of The Doctor’s Game made by Giles Cattermole, a local engineer and craftsman.

Poster for Tim Penn talkMembers of the public are also encouraged to join us for another games-related lecture — More than just fun and games: Why study board games in Roman society? — to be delivered by Dr Tim Penn (currently at University of Oxford), on 22 November at 18:00 in Edith Morley G44. Please cntact ure@reading.ac.uk to RSVP.

Launch of a new Ure Museum exhibition

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We are delighted to announce a new exhibition— Locus Ludi: Anyone can play!—on display at the Ure Museum from 6 September until 30 November, 2023. Image of ancient game pieces from the Ure Museum
This new exhibition, inspired by the European Research Council funded project Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, led by Professor Véronique Dasen, is an opportunity to explore the rich collections relating to games and play in antiquity that are available not only at the Ure Museum but at other UK museums. The exhibition is co-curated by Jayne Holly (Ure Assistant Curator) and Summer Courts (one of our PhD candidates) and benefits particularly from Summer’s expertise in ancient games. We are most grateful to Colchester and Ipswich Museums, Reading Museum, The British Museum and the University of Reading’s Special Collections for the loan of important artefacts from their collections. Han

Another highlight is the game pieces and other contents of the Stanway Doctor’s Grave, a first-century AD tomb discovered by archaeologists in Stanway, Essex, in 1996. (NB you may have heard that ‘Doctor’ referred also as  ‘The Druid of Colchester’, for indeed it is unclear whether he was Celtic, Roman, or other, Druid or even doctor. Nontheless he was buried with a unique gameboard that still baffles experts. You can learn more about it with this video made by the Panoply Vase Animation Project (created with support from the University of Reading’s Friends and Arts Committee) and of course by visiting the exhibition in the Ure Museum!

We have planned several exciting activities and outreach events to coincide with this exhibition. All are welcome but please note that bookings are required for the first two events:

 

Prof. Ian Rutherford elected Fellow of the British Academy

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Prof. Ian RutherfordThe British Academy, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, today announces the election of Ian Rutherford, our Professor of Classics at Reading, as a Fellow of the British Academy. He is one of 52 new UK Fellows who together exemplify a breadth of SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) disciplines. This prestigious accolade is due recognition of Ian’s prolific research in ancient Greek poetry,  ancient religion, especially pilgrimage, and  contact between early Greece and other cultures, particularly ancient Anatolia (Türkiye) and Egypt. He has published four monographs, nine (co-)edited volumes, and over 100 articles. A strong believer in the benefits of research-led teaching, Ian regularly teaches these subjects to our Department’s UG and PG cohorts.

Professor Ian Rutherford’s election gives Reading Classics two Fellows of the British Academy (FBA), the other being Professor Eleanor Dickey, making it the only Classics department outside Oxford and Cambridge to have more than one Fellow in post. While Reading’s Classics Department is relatively small—e.g. the smallest Classics unit submitted to the most recent REF—the presence of two FBAs in post is a strong indication of its research excellence and international recognition. The British Academy elects only one or two scholars per subject per year, after a rigorous evaluation from internationally recognised scholars in each discipline.

Congratulations to Ian for this well deserved recognition of his outstanding contributions to scholarship.

In the shadow of Hippolytos: Classical studies in honour of Professor Barbara E. Goff

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Woman sacrificing on cup in Toledo Museum of ArtTo celebrate the work of our esteemed friend, colleague and Co-head of Department, Prof. Barbara Goff, we have planned a one-day conference in her honour, on the cusp of her retirement, Friday 22nd September 2023. We have assembled an international cadre of her colleagues, collaborators, (former) students and other associates to discuss the diverse range of inclusive and innovative Classical studies on which she herself has contributed so greatly to scholarship in our and related academic fields. The conference’s four themes, which engage with aspects of her teaching and scholarship are the following:

  • Drama, Theory, History
  • A Sporting Life
  • Broad(er) Classics
  • Re-roo/uting Classics

We are delighted to announce that we will be joined also by Dr Stella Keramida from University of Reading’s Department of Film, Theatre, and Television, who with her students is preparing a performance of (some of) Trojan Women. 

Everyone is invited to join us — whether in person or online — to celebrate Prof. Goff on this august occasion, but please sign up here. Please do not hesitate to contact doukissa.kamini@reading.ac.uk for further details or if you have any questions.

Amy Smith, Dania Kamini and Oliver Baldwin

The full programme is linked here.

Remembering Prof. Em. Jane F. Gardner (1934-2023)

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Reading’s Department of Classics held a memorial for the late Professor Emeritus Jane F. Gardner on April 26th. Jane was a landmark of the Department for many decades, not only because of the length of her employment (from 1963 to her retirement in 1999), but also because of her strong character and her utter commitment to the Reading Classics community on all its levels, from undergraduates to professors. Long after her retirement, Jane continued to come in to visit colleagues and attend research seminars, even when her declining mobility necessitated the use of a wheelchair. It was therefore wholly fitting that members of the Department – including those who have moved on to other posts, or retired – came together to celebrate her life, work, and many qualities.

The programme from the event (designed by Ure volunteer and graphic designer Matthew Knight), which can be found here, combined personal reminiscence with academic reflection, and covered the many facets of Jane’s long career: Roman historian, specialist in Roman law, Curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, and expert referee of book manuscripts for Cambridge University Press. It opened with a Latin encomium, written and beautifully read by our Professor Eleanor Dickey, a distinguished practitioner of spoken Latin. The text of the encomium is included in the programme; Jane would have much enjoyed its combination of deep respect and affectionate levity.

This combination marked the whole event, especially the drinks reception which followed the formal presentations, an opportunity for reminiscence and for people to swap their favourite Jane stories. I overheard many laughing accounts of her irascibility, but also even more numerous stories of her generosity – with her time and her expertise, directed into helping students, junior colleagues, and Classicists in other Universities who approached her for advice on Roman law.

The success of the gathering was greatly enhanced by the help of our student volunteers, Shona Carter-Griffiths, Jacinta Hunter and Daisy Roffe. Also essential to the smooth running of the whole memorial was doctoral researcher Edward Ross, who provided IT support and also arranged the music which played quietly at the start of the gathering and during the reception. It was Mozart, at Jane’s own request: ‘Not too frivolous … but not too gloomy either!’ was her not-entirely-helpful stipulation. Finally, it is important to note that the presentations were recorded by Daisy Roffe; once the recording has been edited and captioned, we will make it available for those unable to attend the event, or indeed wishing to relive it.

Finally, there was a third element to the event: the launch of a temporary exhibition on Jane’s life, in the Ure Museum (where it can still be viewed), whose creation was led by Assistant Curator Jayne Holly. Central to this exhibition was a number of pictures from Jane’s not unimportant collection of art, on temporary loan. These include works by Jenny Halstead and Terry Frost, reflecting Jane’s commitment not only to art (she was a longstanding Friend of the Royal Academy, and a great lover of galleries and exhibitions while her health allowed her to visit them), but also her interest in Reading’s life and culture. Many UoR academics live in Oxford or London, justifiably drawn to the proximity of first-rate libraries, but Jane settled in Lower Earley and stayed there until the day before she died. For this reason, we were especially glad that several of her neighbours were able to join us for the memorial.

Students get paid to do research

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We are looking forward to having lots of undergraduate research collaborators this summer, thanks to University of Reading’s UROP—Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme. This is an amazing opportunity for our talented undergraduates to get paid for a 6-week experience, usually between their 2nd & 3rd years of study, doing real research alongside their teachers. In each case the research should result in academically rigorous published outputs. Classics benefits most years from this opportunity, but competition is stiff, both for getting the project funded and for choosing the lucky student from among those who apply. This year we have secured funding for three of our projects, namely:

Athenian Festival ware in the Ure Museum. Collect and analyse examples in Reading’s Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology of black-figure ceramics created and used as festival ware in ancient Athens, as a testbed for a larger project—Immanence and Innovation—amassing and analysing evidence of such ceramics from international collections. Now open to 1st year students, updated deadline for applications is 22-May-2023.

In the Company of Monsters: New Visions, Ancient Myths. This project uses contemporary visual art to investigate the power of ancient mythology to engage modern audiences and to explore contemporary themes of identity and diversity. The student will research and create inclusive text to accompany a research-led exhibition at Reading Museum.

Public interactions with Lowbury Hill. Working under the umbrella of the Mymerian project (https://research.reading.ac.uk/mymerian/) we seek to gather, analyse, and interpret trends in modern and contemporary public perceptions of the archaeology and history of Lowbury Hill, Oxfordshire, through research in archives and print media.

Interested 2nd year students are encouraged to peruse the UROP placements available this year: indeed students are encouraged to apply to UROPs from other departments, if they have the right skills and knowledge. The main UROP page and the pages for each project indicate the application procedure, but all applications from interested students are due before 3 April 2023 (Athenian Festival ware UROP application now open until 22-May-2023)

Lowbury Hill mystery

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The work of two of our PhD students concerning the mystery surrounding the remains of two Early Medieval persons buried at Lowbury Hill, Oxfordshire, has come to public prominence this month as we prepare for a full osteological analysis of their remains.  The Lowbury duo were discovered by Donald Atkinson, a research fellow from Reading’s Classics Department, in his 1913-14 excavations at the site, which inspired the Ure Museum’s curator Annie Ure, then a student. The pair—a woman and a man—were then displayed together in a two-part glass case in University College Reading’s Museum of History and Archaeology, a precursor to the Ure Museum.  Since the 1920s their remains fell into obscurity. Subsequent analysis of the male, discovered within an Early Medieval barrow, suggests he was a seventh-century warrior who lived in Cornwall or western Ireland before being buried on Lowbury Hill. Since 2017 his remains, along with his elaborate grave goods—including a sword, shield, enamelled spearhead, knife, shears, a bronze hanging bowl and a bone comb—have been on display at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Remains of the woman, who had been buried in line with the wall of a Roman-era enclosure on the hilltop, are normally stored in Standlake. A partial analysis suggests she reached the age of ca. 40 and was buried between 550 to 650 AD. Because she was buried without grave items, little else is known about her.

The Oxfordshire County Council has announced the removal of the male from their museum, in preparation for Summer Courts’ osteological analysis of both individuals, to be undertaken at the Cranfield Forensics Institute, under the supervision of Dr Sophie Beckett, one of her PhD supervisors. Her research is co-supervised by Reading’s Professor Amy Smith and Angie Bolton (Oxfordshire Museum Service) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council via the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership Collaborative Doctoral Award. Then the team will send samples to Germany for analysis in collaboration with Professor Stephan Schiffels at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Look for another press release in the coming days as Summer begins her analysis.

At the same time the local community has now become interested in the project through a display at the Goring Public Library, accompanied by a series of public events. Seongmee Yoon, another one of our PhD students, co-supervised by Prof. Smith and Dr Rhi Smith (Museum Studies, UoR), has taken this opportunity to study public perceptions of the site, the mysterious duo, and Anglo-Saxons, as part of her museological research. The entire team enjoyed the hospitality of Goring’s Catholic Church this Wednesday night when a sold-out audience heard presentations by Summer and Angie, followed by a poetry reading by Amy. As Summer said, “The study has given us the chance to explore a fascinating site with a thrilling history while applying several archaeological approaches and working with an invested and excited local community.”

More information on the research can be found at the project website: research.reading.ac.uk/mymerian