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Faculty of Classics

 

Biography

Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Classics, and Principal Investigator of the UKRI-funded project 'Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems' (VIEWS, grant no. EP/X028240/1)

Research

As PI of the VIEWS project, current research focuses on the study and classification of writing systems around the ancient Mediterranean and beyond, with particular attention to their visual aspects. Previous publications have mainly focused on languages and writing systems of Cyprus and the Aegean.

Publications

Key publications: 

Books

Writing around the Ancient Mediterranean: Practices and Adaptations, Oxford 2022, co-editor Philip J. Boyes.

The Early Greek Alphabets: Origin, Diffusion, Uses, Oxford 2021, co-editor Robert Parker.

The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices, Oxford 2021, co-editors Philip J. Boyes and Natalia Elvira Astoreca.

Understanding Relations Between Scripts II: Early Alphabets, Oxford 2019, co-editor Philip J. Boyes.

Writing and Society in Ancient Cyprus, Cambridge 2018.

Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems, Oxford 2017.

A Linguistic History of Ancient Cyprus: The Non-Greek Languages, and their Relations with Greek, c.1600-300 BC, Cambridge 2013.

Syllabic Writing on Cyprus and its Context, Cambridge 2013.

Articles

In press: ‘Greece and Cyprus: regional approaches to the development of writing systems, traditions and practices’ in Alonso Déniz, A. (ed.) Contacts linguistiques en Grèce ancienne : diachronie et synchronie, MOM Éditions.

In press: A comparative approach to methods of inscribing clay tablets: interaction and innovation in Cyprus and Ugarit’: in Bultrighini, I. and Anglicker, E.M. (eds.) Current Approaches to the Materiality of Texts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Brepols. With Philip J. Boyes.

‘Material entanglements of writing practices in the Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus’ in Steel, L. (ed.) Exploring Materiality in the Bronze Age, special issue of Sustainability 12 2020, 1-17. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410671)

‘Script and literacy’ in Lemos, I.S. and Kotsonas, A. (eds.) A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean, Oxford (Blackwell Companion) 2019, 247-69.

'The development of Greek alphabets: Fluctuations and standardisations’ in Steele, P.M. and Boyes, P.J. (eds.) Understanding Relations Between Scripts II: Early Alphabets, Oxford 2019, 125-49.

‘Linear A and Linear B: Structural and contextual concerns’ in Nosch, M-.L. and Landenius Enegren, H. (eds.) Aegean Scripts. Proceedings of the 14th Mycenological Colloquium 2-6 September, Copenhagen 2015 Incunabula Graeca Vol. CV, 1, Rome 2017, 99-114. With Torsten Meißner.

‘Writing ‘systems’: Literacy and the transmission of writing in non-administrative contexts’ in Jasink, E.M., Weingarten, J. and Carraro, F. (eds.) Non-scribal Communication Media in the Bronze Age Aegean and Surrounding Areas, Periploi 9, 81-100 - in press.

‘From Linear B to Linear A: The problem of the backward projection of sound values’ in Steele, P.M. (ed.) Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems, Oxford 2017, 93-110. With Torsten Meißner.

'A linguistic approach to population movements to ancient Cyprus' in Maguire, R. and Chick, J. (eds.) Approaching Cyprus, Cambridge 2016, 2-17.

‘Aegean and Cypriot script reforms: Ruptures and continuities’, BICS 59.1 2016, 136-7.

'Distinguishing between Cypriot scripts: Steps towards establishing a methodology’, Kadmos 53 2014, 129-48.

'The /d/, /t/, /l/ and /r/ series in Linear A and B, Cypro-Minoan and the Cypriot Syllabary', forthcoming in Pasiphae 8 2014, 189-96.

'The Greek Writing Systems', in G.K. Giannakis (ed.) Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics, Leiden 2013/4.

'The Diversity of the Cypro-Minoan Corpus' in Carlier, P. et al. (eds.) Études mycéniennes 2010. Actes du XIIIe colloque international sur les textes égéens, Pisa-Rome 2012, 537-544.

''Legality' and Mycenaean Scribes' in Kyriakidis, E. (ed.), Proceedings of the International Colloquium “The Inner Workings of the Mycenaean Bureaucracy”, University of Kent, Canterbury, 19-21 September 2008, Pasiphae 5, Pisa-Rome 2011, 119-26.

'Eteocypriot: Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence', in Georgiou, A. (ed.), Cyprus: an island culture. Society and Social Relations from the Bronze Age to the Venetian Period, Oxford 2011, 122-32.

''Gaps' in Literacy: Social responses to economic crisis in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean', Archaeological Review from Cambridge 26.1 2011, 53-63.

'A New Archaic and Possibly Cypriot Inscription from Cilicia', Kadmos 49 2010, 127-32. With Markus Egetmeyer.

'Methodology in Mycenaean Prosopography: The Use of Names as Evidence', Kadmos 48 2009, 93-106.

'A Comparative Look at Mycenaean and Near Eastern Bureaucracies: 'Bilateral' Documentation in the Linear B Archives?', Kadmos 47 2008, 31-49.

Teaching and Supervisions

Research supervision: 

Available for supervision on topics with relevance to the VIEWS project (particularly writing systems of the ancient Mediterranean).

Graduate supervision and examination in Greek and Latin linguistics and epigraphy and Mycenaean epigraphy, language and history

Principal Investigator of Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems
Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College
Director of Studies at Wolfson College

Contact Details

Magdalene College
Cambridge
CB3 0AG
pms45@cam.ac.uk
01223 335096
Takes PhD students
Not available for consultancy

Affiliations

Latest news

Election of two new Professors in the Faculty of Classics

27 March 2024

The Faculty is delighted to announce the election of Professor Josephine (Jo) Crawley Quinn to the Professorship of Ancient History and Professor Serafina Cuomo to the A. G. Leventis Professorship of Greek Culture . Jo will join the Faculty on 1 January 2025 and will be the first woman to hold the Professorship of Ancient...

Craven Seminar 2024

26 March 2024

The programme for the Craven Seminar 2024, ‘Interface Interpretation: exegesis as encounter in Greco-Roman literature’ , is now available online . This will be an in-person event. Please click here to register.

Classical Equalities Lecture 25 April 2024 at 17.00 in G19

4 March 2024

Jane Draycott will be giving this year’s Classical Equalities lecture, on ‘ Prostheses in Classical Antiquity: Everything You Never Knew You Wanted To Know’. Jane Draycott is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow. Her research investigates science, technology, and medicine in the ancient world. She has...

Soundmarks Project

12 February 2024

Soundmarks, an art/archaeology collaboration between Rose Ferraby, Cambridge Archaeologist, and Rob St John using sound and visual art launches at DIG in York. In 2019 the pair created work exploring and animating the sub-surface landscape of Aldborough Roman Town in North Yorkshire, UK. Soundmarks Aldborough was re-shown...