Calendar
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations with Selected Correspondence
Translated by Robert Hard, edited by Christopher Gill
Aurelius’ private notebook of philosophical reflections includes some fresh translations.
Jan 2012
The Great Divide
Peter Grant
Brings all the relevant sciences and mythology together to create a new understanding of human history.
Jan 2012
It’s a Wonderful World
Albert Jack
Over 500 of the most bizarre English words traced back to their origins.
Nov 2011
The Iliad
A new translation by Anthony Verity, introduction and notes by Barbara Graziosi.
Sept 2011
A Culture of Freedom
Christian Miller
Lively analysis and exploration of the culture of the ancient Greeks.
Sept 2011
Rome Tales
Stories translated by Hugh Shanklin, edited by Helen Constantine.
July 2011
The Birth of Classical Europe
Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
2011
Britain after Rome
Robin Fleming
The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070
2011
Unwrapped: The Story of a Child Mummy
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Ends 4th March 2012
This installation, by the artist Angela Palmer, in the museum’s Cast Gallery, provides a unique and intimate glimpse beneath the wrappings of an Egyptian child mummy. The exhibition is the culmination of Palmer’s four-year journey to discover the story of a boy who died between AD 80–120, almost 2,000 years ago when the Romans ruled Egypt
The cost of living in Roman and modern Britain
British Museum, London
Ends 15th April 2012
This small display looks at the similarities and differences between the cost of everyday living in Britain about 2,000 years ago and today. These changes are shown through comparing things like wages, property, food, clothing, gambling, entertainment and travel, revealing how much of the average wage was spent on these items both in the past and today.
Fascinating Mummies
National Museum Scotland, Edinburgh
Ends 27th May 2012
The Ancient Egyptian belief in the afterlife and their desire to preserve the body after death has left a rich legacy for archaeologists and scientists to study. Fascinating Mummies reveals people from the past who lived, worked and died over 2,000 years ago.
The Oresteia A Trilogy of Plays by Aeschylus
A translation by Ted Hughes
Riverside Studios, London
February 29th to March 24th, 2012
Sacrifice. War. Victory. Troy has fallen. Agamemnon returns, a hero with his trophy – a Trojan priestess. Crimes weigh heavily on him. A sumptuous welcome awaits him. A trap. His wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, his cousin Aegisthus – both want revenge for past crimes. The curse of Atreus is raging: bloody and savage. It calls for retribution. The exiled Orestes returns.
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
A translation by Ranjit Bolt
The Ashcroft Theatre, Fairfield Hall, Croydon
February 22nd to 24th, 2012
If the men want to continue to engage in a bloody war, then their women will deny them their conjugal rights. Aristophanes’s absurd play, presented by Actors of Dionysus.
Antigone by Sophocles
A translation by Don Taylor
The National, Olivier Theatre, London
May 23rd to June 20th, 2012
Desperate to gain control over a city ravaged by civil war, Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone’s rebellious brother. Outraged, she defies his edict. Creon condemns the young woman, his niece, to be buried alive. Starring Christopher Eccleston and Jodie Whittaker
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
May 28th to July 7th, 2012
The dictator must be assassinated. But who will replace him? Shakespeare’s great political thriller, Julius Caesar, finds dark, contemporary echoes in modern Africa, directed by RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran.
Egypt Week Lectures at the Ashmolean Museum
Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt with Dr Susan Walker, Keeper of Antiquities.
Ioannou Centre Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Friday February 17th, 11am–12pm
Free
Susan Walker looks at the painted portraits excavated by Flinders Petrie in the shadow of the pyramid at Hawara. Who were the subjects of these remarkable portraits and why did they choose to be painted like Romans and buried like Egyptians?
The Discovery of Tutankhamun with the Countess of Carnarvon
Gallery 21, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Friday February 17th, 6.30–7.30pm
Free
In 1914 the 5th Earl of Carnarvon received concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was not until 1922 that the excavation, led by the archaeologist Howard Carter, revealed the astonishing tomb of Tutankhamun. The present Countess of Carnarvon, tells the famous story of her ancestor’s role in the discovery.
The Largest Piece of Egyptian Writing in Europe with Dr Jaromir Malek,
Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Sat 18 Feb, 12–1pm
Ioannou Centre Lecture Theatre, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Free
