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E-J Graham

@e-jgraham.bsky.social

Professor of Roman Archaeology at The Open University | Roman archaeology | material religion | penguins 🐧

32 Posts237 Follower152 Folgt
Open University Music Department@oumusic.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Are you dreaming of studying music at Masters level but worried about the cost? The Margaret Wooder Studentships could cover your full tuition fees for our MA Music programme. ✅ Part One fees fully funded ✅ Part Two fees funded on passing Part One at merit or distinction level

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Classics at Leeds@leedsclassics.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Dr Stuart McKie on "Curse tablets and demons: a sense of the weird" - join us for our next research seminar on Thursday 19 March 2026, 17:15-18:30 UK time. All very welcome to attend in person or online! Joining instructions and in person venue in the thread!

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I started with the OU seriously at 39. Since then I've done a full BA in Classics, plus a couple of modules in eg Biology and Art History, then an MA in Classics, now starting on some Maths. I made a decision to be this person, and I am grateful to Naomi-age-39 for it. The time goes past anyway.

OpenARC Research Centre@openarc.bsky.social · 8mo ago

We'll post about our research groups over the next days, starting with... 1️⃣ Baron Thyssen Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion (Classical Studies) — exploring the material, visual & sensory worlds of Greek, Etruscan & Roman religions. Director/Deputy: Jessica Hughes/Emma-Jayne Graham

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ewan coopey@euuanxcvi.bsky.social · 8mo ago

et voila! Online open access via the MQ Waranara library: ‘Roman archaeology with agencements,’ a thesis that looks to assemblage thinking in order to both unpack how social life was (and is) always more-the-human and to enhance the concept of the Roman army as a community. doi.org/10.25949/313...

Roman archaeology with agencements: Assemblage thinking and the military community in Dalmatia and beyond

This thesis explores how an assemblage thinking archaeological framework can enhance our understanding of Roman military communities. First, it tracks the inception of the concept of the ‘Roman military as a community,’ revealing that previous engagements with the idea focused on looking beyond the supposed military machine to the people inside (and around) it. However, whilst these studies are of significant value, illuminating the diversity of experiences within the Roman military, they typically sideline or under-theorise the place of more-than-human things and beings, such as animals, objects, and the environment.To remedy this, I look to posthumanist theory, specifically the assemblage thinking philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and its central concept of agencement (‘assemblage,’ a more-than-human process of (de/re)arrangement). Using assemblage thinking, I fashion a framework for Roman archaeology that embraces process, openness, and the more-than-human. This is first applied to the idea of community, which I reconstruct as a more-than-human, open, and multiscalar arrangement of people, monuments, objects, signs, practices, and more, centred around associated life, or ‘communal becoming.’ Working from this understanding, the Roman military community concept is revisited. It is argued that the Roman military of the first three centuries CE comprised myriad overlapping communities embedded within broader society, which stretched well beyond the bounds of servicemen, and that more-thanhuman things and beings were vital components of the agencements that shaped life in these communities. This is explored further with case studies of dona militaria (‘military awards’) and signa militaria (‘military signs’).From this stance, I turn to inscribed funerary monuments from the Roman province of Dalmatia (parts of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia) to study how the more-than-human could be affective within communal military life. Evidence from sites such as Salona (Solin), Tilurium (Gardun), Burnum (Ivoševci), and pagus Scunasticus (Ljubuški) is considered, revealing that members of the military community set up and interacted with hundreds of inscribed funerary ix monuments of various styles and forms (stelae, tituli, and arae), and that these objects, and their associated practices, were a vital component of the Roman military community in first- to early-second-century CE Dalmatia. To examine how exactly, two particular dimensions of this relationship are explored: the creation of communal funerary spaces and the circulation of social significance signs via funerary decoration.This thesis concludes that Roman military communities were (re)constituted, (re)shaped, and (re)defined by humans and the more-than-human together. It also exhibits the wealth of evidence available from Dalmatia for similarly critical investigations of the Roman world. It also shows that assemblage thinking can offer a valuable range of tools with which to study how people lived with other things in the ancient world.

doi.org

ewan coopey@euuanxcvi.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Seems like the world is getting posthumanist Roman archaeology in Dalmatia whether it likes it or not Awarded with corrections! What a Monday #archaeology

Front page of a thesis with a roman stela fragment on it, with the text on the title page reading: Roman archaeology with agencements: Assemblage thinking and the military community in Dalmatia and beyond Ewan S. Coopey BAncHist, MRes (University Medal) Discipline of History and Archaeology Macquarie University, Sydney Submitted on the 21" of August, 2025
Dr Christine Plastow@chrissieplastow.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Your periodic reminder that you can start learning ancient Greek right now, free of charge!

Dr Christine Plastow@chrissieplastow.bsky.social · 2y ago

Because I'm updating them today, I'd like to remind #AncientBluesky that we have *FREELY ACCESSIBLE* Ancient Greek resources at the Open University! 🏺 First, we have a 16 hour free OpenLearn course, which takes you from learning the alphabet to reading simple sentences: www.open.edu/openlearn/hi...

@archadam.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Check out this latest research blog from the very excellent Seeing The Dead project in York. It's an account of what we found when removing the upper part of a Roman gypsum cast which hadnt been moved in 150years. seeingthedead.ac.uk/blog/excavat...

Excavating a Roman gypsum burial

We've begun work on one of the project's most intriguing burials - a surviving gypsum casing inside a Roman sarcophagus. Find out what we discovered during our initial investigations!

seeingthedead.ac.uk

Blanka Misic@drblankam.bsky.social · 12mo ago

📯🏺🏛️ Our @universitypress.cambridge.org book "Senses, Cognition and Ritual Experience in the Roman World" is #OPENACCESS ! 👇 www.cambridge.org/core/books/s... #archaeology #sensoryarchaeology #senses #cognition #cognitivescienceofreligion #ritual #religion #classics #ancienthistory #romanhistory

Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World

Cambridge Core - Ancient History - Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World

cambridge.org

Tony Potter@tony-potter.bsky.social · last yr.

Probably a long shot, but does anyone have an electronic copy that they’d be willing to share with me of Friedhelm Prayon (1975) … “Frühetruskische Grab- und Hausarchitektur” I had copies saved on a flash drive, but it’s now corrupted & I can’t access it 😑