Junior Research Fellow, St. John's College
Cambridge
CB2 1TP
Biography:
I am a Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College. I have completed my PhD in Classics at Peterhouse (Cambridge), specializing in Mycenaean Epigraphy, after an MPhil at Lucy Cavendish College (Cambridge). Before moving to Cambridge, I completed a BA and an MA in Classics at the University of Padova (Italy) in association with the Galileian School of Higher Education.
Areas of expertise
Research Interests
My current research revolves around the palaeographical relations between Bronze Age Cretan scripts, focusing primarily on Linear A (writing Minoan) and Linear B (writing Mycenaean Greek), and branching out to the older Cretan Hieroglyphic (unidentified language). As Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic still remain undeciphered, the long-term goal of this work is to help establish clearer palaeographical connections (or the lack thereof) ultimately leading to a refinement of the sign repertories, as well as structures, of Cretan scripts so as to arrive at a more nuanced appreciation of the Cretan writing traditions as a whole (both synchronically and diachronically). This avenue of research originated form my PhD dissertation, where I investigated the process of script adaptation and transmission with language change from Linear A onto Linear B on structural and palaeographical grounds.
Research Supervision
- Graduate and Undergraduate supervisor: Greek and Latin linguistics and translation, Mycenaean Greek linguistics, Mycenaean epigraphy.
- Teacher of the course ‘Introduction to Linear B’ in the Summer School in Homer at University College London (July 2016, 2017, 2018).
Other Professional Activities
- Affiliated Lecturer, Faculty of Classics (academic years 2019-20, 2020-21): ‘Aegean Prehistory’ & ‘Greek in the Bronze Age’.
- Undergraduate and Graduate (MPhil) Examiner (academic year 2018-19).
- Undergraduate Admissions Interviewer (Classics, St. John's College).
Key Publications
- Book
Aegean Linear Script(s): Rethinking the Relationship between Linear A and Linear B, 2020, Cambridge University Press.
- Book Chapters
‘Reconstruction of an orthographic system: The Linear B syllabary of Bronze Age Greece’, forthcoming, in Condorelli M. and Rutkowska H. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography, Cambridge University Press.
- Articles
‘A note on the Linear A & B ideogram AB 131/VIN(um) 'wine' and its variants: References to time notation?’, 2020, Ktèma 45, pp. 161-171.
‘Drawing lines: The palaeography of Linear A and Linear B’, 2019, Kadmos 58, pp. 61-92.
‘Non-connective behaviour of the particle -qe in the Linear B documents from Pylos’, 2019, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici. Nuova Serie 5, pp. 71-84.
‘Form and function of clausal particles in the Mycenaean documents from Pylos’, 2019, Journal of Greek Linguistics 19, pp. 196-214.
‘Some thoughts on Mycenaean o-u-qe’, 2018, in Jasink A. M. and Alberti M. E. (eds.), Akrothinia 2: Contributi di giovani ricercatori agli studi egei e ciprioti(Firenze University Press), pp. 249-257.
- Reviews
Review of Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems, ed. by Steele P. M., 2017, Oxford, in Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie 58 (2018, p. 48-49).
- Digital Resources
SigLA - The Signs of Linear A: a palaeographical database (under construction), in collaboration with Simon Castellan.