Stories From Objects

In this episode, PhD students  Rachael Banes and Liam McLeod join Dr Maeve McHugh and our special guest Dr Daniel Reynolds who will introduce us to the fascinating Byzantine Empire. During the episode, we’ll learn about Christian pilgrims and the souvenirs travellers brought from holy sites in Egypt. We’ll talk about the multi-cultural world of ancient Byzantium and the interactions between peoples of various faiths in the ancient Middle East.

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Study Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Birmingham

Join Dr Maeve McHugh and Kate Robertshaw as we welcome Dr Hannah Cornwell for a fascinating chat about the power of images on Roman coins. These objects were ubiquitous in the Roman world and served an essential function in relaying messages of authority and power to the broadest public and widest reaches of the empire. In this episode, we’ll learn about images of the emperor Hadrian, Augustus, and the depiction of women on coins.

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Study Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Birmingham

In this episode, join Dr Maeve McHugh, Kate Robertshaw and Emily Gershman as they talk about some fantastic examples of Greek pottery we have in the collection. This pottery was made some of the most turbulent and transformative times of Greek history. We’ll discuss how these objects are silent witnesses to  Greece’s contact with the Near East in the 8th and 7th century BCE, how pottery styles developed in pre-democracy Athens, and how the images on pottery tell us so much about daily life in ancient Greece!

Joining Dr Maeve McHugh and Emily Gershman today is Jen Turner who is the Collections Assistant at the Eton Myers Collection of Egyptian Antiquities. In this episode, Jen will give us a tour of the hidden gem that is the Eton Myers Collection. She will introduce us to the fascinating world of Egyptian funerary practices and explain the important role the gods played in protecting the dead. For all you budding Egyptologists out there this is not to be missed!

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Study Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Birmingham

Joining Dr Maeve McHugh, Emily Gershman and Hebe Barlow in today’s episode is Dr David Smith who will introduce us to the fascinating world of Environmental Archaeology. In this episode, Dr Smith will explain what human waste and bugs can tell us about how past people lived, along with explaining how one cow’s bone can illuminate the lives of ancient peoples. During the episode he’ll share insights into some of his experiences collecting samples, and his encounters with wild ancient cows in the UK countryside! This is an episode not to be missed!

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Joining Dr Maeve McHugh in this episode is Anna Young curator at the University’s Research and Cultural Collections (RCC), Jen Turner from the Eton Myers Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, and Kate Robertshaw the archaeology collection’s undergraduate research scholar. In this episode we go behind the scenes of the teaching collections in CAHA, and discuss curating these collections, the role of the RCC in collections care, where these collections come from, and their use in the Department.