News archive 2006
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Promotions for Classics & Archaeology academics
23rd October 2006
This month, in the latest round of promotions, three more Classics & Archaeology staff received well-deserved promotions:
Louise Hitchcock has been promoted to Level C (Senior Lecturer) for her international standing in eastern Mediterranean archaeology. In the short time she has been with us, Louise has managed, among many other things, to attract a considerable cohort of postgraduate students.
Gocha Tsetskhladze has been promoted to Level D (Associate Professor and Reader) for his advancement of the discipline. Gocha, who held a Readership at The University of London before joining us, has contributed a huge amount to classical archaeology through his many publications.
Earlier this year, in July, Tony Sagona was promoted to Professor (Level E) in recognition of his distinguished achievements in his field.
Festschrift in honour of Classics & Archaeology fellow
18th October 2006
A festschrift honouring Assoc Prof Roger Scott, Senior Fellow of the Centre for Classics & Archaeology, has been recently published by The Australian Association for Byzantine Studies. Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott, contains 41 fully refereed articles in 4 categories: Narrative in Historians, Chronicles & Fiction; Narrative in Byzantine Art; Christian Narrative and Eschatology; and Architecture, Archaeology, Economy and Ta Exotika.
The volume contains several articles written by Centre staff and fellows including Mr John Burke, Senior Fellow; Dr Felicity Harley, Fellow; Professor Margarete Manion, Professor Emeritus; Professor Eric Osborn, Professorial Fellow; and Associate Professor Scott himself. Edited by John Burke with Ursula Betka, Penelope Buckley, Kathleen Hay (also a Fellow of the Centre), Roger Scott & Andrew Stephenson, Byzantine Narrative, serves as volume 16 of Byzantina Australiensia, a publication of The Australian Association for Byzantine Studies which aims to provide access to texts of the Byzantine period in translation, and relevant scholarship.
It is available for purchase through The Australian Association for Byzantine Studies at: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/welcome.htm or by contacting:
Centre for Early Christian Studies
Australian Catholic University
PO Box 456, Virginia, Queensland 4014, Australia
Tel: + 61 7 3623 7308
Fax: +61 7 3623 7348
Email: early.christian@mcauley.acu.edu.au
Classics & Archaeology ARC success
12th October 2006
The Australian Research Council (ARC) has announced the Discovery Grant recipients for projects commencing in 2007. Classics and Archaeology received funding for the project 'A study of the archaeology of Caucasian Iberia with implications for grazing management' with the participants Professor Tony Sagona, Dr Gotcha Tsetskhladze, Mr Cliff Ogleby, and Dr Claudia Sagona.
This 3-year multi‑disciplinary project will promote a younger generation of talented postgraduate and undergraduate students in a wide variety of fields, including archaeology, geomatic engineering, conservation of material culture, environmental and other natural sciences. The highlands of the Caucasus, located in a bioclimatic zone with a long history of alpine grazing, can also provide answers to questions such as the effect of grazing on biodiversity and the rehabilitation of fragile ecosystems, which may inform management and conservation activities in analogous highland country in Australia. The project will also ensure that exhibitions illustrating the rich heritage of Caucasus will reach Australian shores.
Leeper prize awarded to Classics students
30th September 2006
Two honours students, Elizabeth Greentree and Samantha Brownlie, from the Centre have won the annual Alexander Leeper Prize, which is administered by the Classical Association of Victoria. It is awarded each year to the highest-achieving undergraduate honours student in the state of Victoria in classics (or classics & archaeology), who also studied Latin and/or Greek, and who completed their honours degree in the previous calendar year.
The Leeper prize is shared this year by two students whose honours study in 2005 admirably combined both classical languages and archaeology. Elizabeth Greentree (who studied Intermediate Greek) wrote her honours thesis on “The Development of the Ideologies of Kingship in Ancient Egypt”; and Samantha Brownlie (who studied Intermediate Latin) wrote her honours thesis on “Theorizing Hominid Archaeology.”
The Leeper Prize was established in memory of Alexander Leeper (1848-1934), who in 1876 became the first Warden of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, and in 1912 became the first president of the Classical Association of Victoria. The awarding of the Leeper Prize preceeded the annual W.H. Allen Memorial lecture, which took take place Tuesday 19 September, 2006, at Ormond College.
New book for Classics & Archaeology fellow
4th September 2006
Roman Theatres: An Architectural Study is the most detailed analysis of Roman theatre architecture published to date. As a comprehensive catalogue of theatre architecture, Roman Theatres is a goldmine of information, examining the layout and design, regional stylistic characteristics, hundreds of Greek and Latin inscriptions and other literary evidence, previous scholarship, locations, orientations, dimensions, and histories for all known theatres, as well as concert halls, and other related structures across the providences of Rome. It contains approximately 1000 entries in total with more than 500 floor plans of buildings of theatrical type and nearly 200 other figures and plates. More extensive treatment is given to sites of particular importance such as the theatre at Taormina in Sicily, the Theatre of Pompey, and the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome.
The book, authored by Prof Frank Sear from the Centre for Classics & Archaeology at The University of Melbourne, has been 20 years in the making and is the product of nearly an entire career’s worth of research, fieldwork, and years of collaboration with the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, the Universities of Sydney, Rome, Northwestern University (USA), and King’s College (UK) and the Centre for World Archaeology at Norwich (UK). Prof Sear’s research for this book has been financed through two ARC and numerous other grants.
A book launch for Roman Theatres will be held during the Close Relations conference on Wednesday 20 September 2006, at 5:30pm in the Harold White Theatre foyer, School of Creative Arts, on the campus of the University of Melbourne. It is published by Oxford University Press and currently available for pre-order from amazon.com.
Prestigous international award for Dr Louise Hitchcock
12th September 2006
Dr Louise Hitchcock has been awarded the 2006/2007 Annual Professorship at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, as well as honorary status in the National Endowment for Humanities (USA) for her project titled: Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings: Exploring Interconnections in Aegean and Levantine Architecture. This project will examine the relationships between the architecture of Cyprus, the Aegean, and the Levant (Canaanite, Philistine, and early Israelite) from the Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age.
The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) has developed and disseminated scholarly knowledge of the literature, history, and culture of the ancient Near East for more than 100 years. The Institute serves as a base for a broad range of scholarly research in ancient Near Eastern studies, from the prehistoric to the early Islamic periods. The Institute fosters participation in, and provides support for, archaeological excavations and surveys, and promotes working relationships with related institutions in Jerusalem and the neighboring communities.
Dr Hitchcock will be in residence at the Institute from 20 November 2006 to 20 July 2007. Dr Hitchcock is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Classics & Archaeology.
Scholarship awarded to Classics student
6th July 2006
PhD candidate Estelle Strazdins (Classical Studies) was awarded the Jessie Webb scholarship. The Webb scholarship enables the awarded applicant to spend a season in Greece under the direction of the British School of Archaeology at Athens. The scholarship is awarded to applicants with an outstanding academic record and proposed program of study while in Greece. The working title for Estelle’s project is ‘Roman Identity and the ‘Hybrid’ Provincial’ and it examines Roman identity in the second-third centuries CE, from the time of Hadrian to the ‘universal’ grant of citizenship in 212 CE focusing on the “provincial intellectual,” persons who identify themselves as ‘Roman’while living in Greece. Hadrian is an important figure for this project because, as a nomadic emperor, he challenged the idea of Rome as ‘centre’. He also created an ambiguous self-identity by adopting many behaviors and fashions which are generally thought to be culturally Greek.