Durham Department of Classics and Ancient History

👏 Congratulations to Dr Lucy Jackson, whose review of Rosa Andújar's 'Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy' recently appeared in the Times Literary Supplement!

🔗 https://www.the-tls.com/classics/greek/playing-the-chorus-in-greek-tragedy-rosa-andujar-book-review-lucy-jackson

🎉 Congratulations to all students receiving their A Level results today! We hope you are very proud of what you have achieved.

🎓 To those students holding offers from Durham Classics that are now confirmed - welcome! We are really looking forward to teaching you soon.

👀 Keep checking back to this account over the coming weeks. We'll give you lots of handy information about the Department before you join us.

🐴 Have we all seen 'The Odyssey' now? ?

📣 Catch up with reviews, thoughts and comments by our departmental members past and present!

👉 Dr Lucy Jackson: https://shorturl.at/WbwiI
👉 Prof. Edith Hall: https://shorturl.at/5FyuP (BBC Front Row), https://shorturl.at/a7qCu (ABC Nightlife), https://shorturl.at/42BNj (Times Radio)
👉 Prof. Arlene Holmes-Henderson: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1VYqNCmcrn/
👉 Dr Peter Swallow MP: https://shorturl.at/YtMCR

🎉 Congratulations to Dr Thea Sommerschield, who is part of a Google DeepMind team that has produced new AI-powered research tool designed to analyse ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions.

👉 The new system, called Predicting the Past Skill for Google Antigravity, enables historians to study ancient inscriptions, analyse patterns across thousands of texts, and generate visualisations. This can be achieved by having interactive conversations with the AI Skill without the need for any coding or separate technical tools.

🔗 Learn more: https://www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2026/07/google-deepmind-partnership/

🇬🇷 What a great time we had on our L2 study trip to Greece!

🏛️ Our students visited the Parthenon, Acropolis Museum, Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae and other sites and museums. Well done to all for surviving the July heat!

👏 Thank you to our trip leaders Dr Erica Bexley and Dr Michael Loy; to the British School at Athens for hosting us in Athens; and to our guest speakers Alexandra Katevaini, Dr Julia Shear, Dr Daphne Martin, Prof. Edward Harris, Dr Sharon Stocker and Prof. Jack Davis.

🤩 Alumni: would you like to help ensure we can bring this wonderful trip to future generations of students? Consider making a donation to our study tour fund! Remember to select ‘Classics’ from the support drop-down, and add a note in the comments box to say this is for ‘field trips’: https://l1nq.com/g39dya3

💥 Congratulations to Dr Jacob Lollar, who has a new publication in the journal 'Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies'!

👉 Dr Lollar presents the text and translation of a fifth- or sixth-century Syriac manuscript currently housed at the Russian National Library, arguing that its paratext is two columns of riddles about Oedipus, the mythical king of Thebes.

🔗 Read here for free, open-access: https://grbs.library.duke.edu/index.php/grbs/article/view/17224

🎉 Congratulations to Prof. Arlene Holmes-Henderson, whose new co-edited volume is published today: "Humanities Forward: Opportunity, Innovation, Policy in the 21st Century"

📖 Humanities Forward brings together scholars and practitioners who have developed innovative responses to the challenges facing the Humanities. International, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational, their contributions illuminate, in diverse ways, the impact, value, and societal relevance of the Humanities in the 21st century.

🔗 With thanks to funding from the AHRC, the book is available open-access through Liverpool University Press: https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781805967446

🎉 Congratulations to Dr Chris de Lisle and team, for the publication of new inscriptions on Attic Inscriptions Online!

👉 Today, AIO publishes all decrees of the deme Teithras, Acharnai, and unknown demes, as well as all Athenian inscriptions relating to Roman emperors and the imperial cult from Augustus to Trajan.

🔗 https://www.atticinscriptions.com/browse/bypublicationdate/2026-7-24/

💥 Congratulations to Dr Michael Loy, who has a new publication in the journal 'Past and Present'!

👉 Dr Loy uses Agent-Based Modelling to argue that the early Greek economy became more organised much earlier than is generally thought.

🔗 Read here for free, open-access: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtag021