New (Old) Posts!

Around the end of my PhD I wrote several articles for the Cambridge Classics Faculty’s postgraduate blog, Res Gerendae. I’ve now imported these into Ancient Worlds so all my stuff is available in one place.

Please check out the archives from before 2016 to read about everything from sea-monsters and mummies to making bronze swords.

Please note, I’ll be working through these to fix tags and categories and make sure they fit the Ancient Worlds template, but for now some things may be a little messy. Please bear with me.

Making Ancient Tablets 5 – Further stylus improvements

About a year ago I posted a series following my attempts to write Ugaritic cuneiform, first in plasticine and then in clay. I ended up using the square end of a chopstick for a stylus, and this is what I’ve been doing ever since, including in my cuneiform baking. It works, but it’s fiddly – the stick has to be held just right to make the wedge-shaped prints, and it takes practice to stop them being large and clumsy.

Last weekend I took part in a Prehistory and Archaeology Day as part of Cambridge University’s Festival of Ideas. Hosted by Cambridge Archaeological Unit, this offered hundreds of members of the public – mostly children – the chance to try their hands at a wide range of archaeology-related activities, from spear-throwing and archery to excavation and osteology. The ancient writing systems stall was particularly eclectic, with academics from the Faculty of Classics and the Division of Archaeology showing visitors how to write in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Linear B and alphabetic Greek.