Two Friends Talk History

In this week's episode, Zofia interviews the Director of the British School at Athens (BSA), Professor Rebecca Sweetman. Rebecca has stepped into the role of Director of the BSA for the next few years and has really hit the ground running.
We discuss the role and responsibilities of the institute and the exciting outreach she is leading with her fantastic teams in Athens and Knossos.
With the 50th anniversary of the Fitch Laboratory coming up next year, we discuss how researchers, academics, artists, poets, and more are making use of the incredible library, archives, and collaborative space to engage with  Greece of the past and future.

Professor Sweetman has published on the religious networks and economies of Roman and Late Antique Crete, and the Peloponnesus. She is currently working on a project on the Cycladic islands and the networks that connected them throughout changing social circumstances in the Roman and Late Antique periods.
She is also one of my PhD supervisors at the University of St Andrews!

Follow this link, if you would like to read about Rebecca's fascinating work!

To get in touch with the BSA, you can email [email protected], and for more information about the exciting events taking place, check out the link here.
You can follow the exciting events going on at the BSA on Twitter, Facebook , and
Youtube !

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Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this episode of Two Friends Talk History, Zofia interviews Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of St Andrews, and founder of the Visualising War and Peace Project, Dr Alice König. In this interview, Zofia asks Alice about ideas of representing war in antiquity, and if concepts like a ‘peace movement’ was possible in a period of Roman Imperium. We discuss the absences in war narratives, and war’s impacts on women and children, and then turn our attention to the podcast series that Dr König and Dr Nicolas Wiater, launched in 2021, the Visualising War and Peace podcast. The Visualsing War and Peace podcast has over 60 episodes and seeks to present listeners with cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives on how war and peace were visualised in the past and how new narratives these established frameworks are seeking to disrupt the ways we talk about, teach and reproduce conflicts.

We also discuss the upcoming exhibition Alice has organised with the artist, Diana Forster, opening May 25th at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews, 'Somewhere to Stay’. The exhibition focuses on the forced migration experienced by Diana's mother, a young Polish woman, during WWII.
To hear Diana's episodes, you can listen to Art and War with Diana Forster or Visualising Forced Migration Through History.

We also discussed the upcoming exhibition collaboration with Hugh Kinsella Cunningham,  titled 'Picturing Peace in the Congo'. you can find more information linked here.

You can get in touch with Dr Konig at the University of St Andrews and her work on the Visualising War and Peace project here. Alice is also on Twitter @KonigAlice or @VisualisingWar. You can also follow the project on Facebook and Instagram, and there is an excellent blog series that you can follow through the project website/blog. 

For links to show topics:
On the appropriation of Classics topics/symbols etc by alt-right groups, helpful scholarship can be read here on Pharos' website: https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
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Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this week's episode of Two Friends Talk History, Zofia is joined by Dr Sam Ellis, an expert in the language of tyranny in antiquity and the study of monocratic power in the Greek polis from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period.  We explore how the language used to frame the actions of sole rulers has created a construct of 'tyrant' that remains with us today.

 For a suggested reading list and more information, please check out my website for a blog post on this episode and more resources.

You can get in touch with Dr Ellis on the Universität Mannheim website here,  or you can follow him on Academia.edu. Sam is also on Instagram & Twitter @SamEllis1993. Seriously, check out his Instagram. The photos are stunning.

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

This week on Two Friends Talk History, I spoke with Dr Maxime Ratcliffe, hot off the press with his recently awarded doctorate, to discuss Romano-British well depositions and the tantalising mysteries that were buried within them. We explore their persistence in the British landscape, and their possible uses in antiquity.

For a suggested reading list and more information, please check out my website for a blog post on this episode and more resources.

If you would like to get in touch with Dr Ratcliffe on the Durham University Archaeology department website here,  or you can follow him on Academia.edu.

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this week’s episode, Zofia is joined by returning guest, archaeologist, and archaeobotanist, Alexandra Slucky, to discuss the archaeology of alcohol! We discuss the archaeological process used to identify historic alcoholic vessels and processes.

For a suggested reading list and more information, please check out my website for a blog post on this episode and more resources:
https://archaeoartist.com/2023/01/29/archaeology-of-alcohol-on-tfth/

If you would like to get in touch, you can find Alex on Instagram or on Twitter @SluckyAlex.

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this episode, Zofia interviews Dr Elke Close about Polybius, the Achaean statesman, teacher, and historian from the Hellenistic period. Polybius was active in Megalopolis at the tail end of the period of Greek independence following the wars of the Hellenistic kings and the rise of the Roman empire. 

Elke discusses the social context and political realities that Polybius faced while held in Rome as a hostage, which, fortunately, he lodged with the famous Cornelii Scipiones family. From his position among one of Rome’s most prominent families, Polybius rode shotgun on several watershed moments of the Republic. 

If you would like to find out more from Dr Close, you can follow her Hellenistic History project:
Website: Hellenistic History
Twitter @HellenisticHist
Instagram @drawingancienthistory  and @hellenistichistory

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this episode, Zofia interviews Dr Alex Imrie about the historical context and impact of the Severan dynasty on the Roman Empire and beyond. We unpack how the dysfunctional family engaged with each other and the tumultuous world of politics and warfare around them while trying to connect to a human center.

Dr Imrie is a Tutor in Classics at the University of Edinburgh and the National Outreach Co-ordinator for the Classical Association of Scotland (CAS). His doctoral work focused on the Constitutio Antoniniana (Antonine Constitution), and he has since published widely on the Severans.

To get in touch with Alex, you can find him on Twitter @AlexImrie23 or edinburgh.academia.edu/AlexImrie

In the interview, we discuss his publication on Caracalla's supposed use of the Macedonian phalanx, which you can read more about HERE.

To find out more about the CAS and register for upcoming 2023 programmes, please check out their website: https://cas.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

Kicking off Series 3, in this episode, Zofia interviews Dr Barbara Winter to discuss how indigenous artifacts have traditionally been collected and displayed in western Canada. This discussion touches on the arguments historically used to keep acquired material culture outside of minority communities (by colonial powers), and in large museum collections. To challenge these historic narratives made by caretakers of cultural heritage, we explore the ways in which repatriation reconnects individuals and communities to pre-colonial pasts and helps build confidence for future generations.

Dr Barbara Winter worked at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, for over thirty years as the curator for the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the university. She worked in the Canadian Museum of History in Quebec, and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory.

 The University Museum link:http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/museum.html

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

Drawing the year to a close, this week, Zofia is joined by historian Dr Rory Nutter. Together we discuss the linguistic changes that took place in the Italian peninsula over the 4th- 3rd centuries BCE as Latin speakers interacted with the mosaic of languages spoken in the region, and the importance of looking at the materiality of objects when reading inscriptions.

Tangents include awkward linguistic encounters, Aeclanum field school, and visiting Ostia Antica.

The show will be going on hiatus until February, so until then, thank you so much for tuning to Two Friends Talk History!

You can follow Dr Nutter on Twitter @Rory_Nutter.

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.

In this weeks' episode, Zofia is joined by classical scholar and vampire fang-atic, doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh, Ambra Ghiringhelli. 

Getting to the heart of the vampires in antiquity and in the archaeological record, we shine light in the darkest of spooky places where these immortal bloodsuckers have haunted our imaginations and cemeteries alike. 

We hope you enjoy the final interview of a three-part journey into monsters that went bump in the night and how they remain relevant in the modern world. 
 
 Tangents include the medieval village of Wharram Percy, the plague, Supernatural, and young adult vampire stories.

If you would like to hear more from Ambra, you can follow her on Twitter @AmbraAllison

Bibliography and further reading recommendations include 

•  Beresford, M. (2008). From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth. Reaktion Books, Ltd. 
• Butler, E. (2013). The rise of the vampire. Reaktion Books Ltd.
•  http://www.doublexscience.com/2012/07/vampire-of-venice-returns-or-what-is.html
•  Barber, P. (2010). Vampires, Burial, and Death Folklore and Reality. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
•  Gardeła, L. (2020-01-07). Atypical Burials in Early Medieval Poland: A Critical Overview. In The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange: Bioarchaeological Explorations of Atypical Burials. University Press of Florida.

To get in touch and find out more about Two Friends Talk History:
Find us on Instagram & Twitter
Support us through Patreon
Buy our merch on Redbubble
Explore more resources and topics about the ancient world on ArchaeoArtist

Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin

If you'd like to get in touch, email at [email protected]. 

See you soon with new friends, on Two Friends.