UCL Lunch Hour Lecture Series
March 9th, 2010
Dr Andrew Gardner: The end of Roman Britain: what ended, when and why?
Venue: Darwin Lecture Theatre, UCL at 1.15pm-1.55pm
A crucial event in the formation of the culture and identity of Britain occurred 1600 years ago - or did it? While tradition has it that the Roman occupation of Britain ended in AD 410, events surrounding this year need to be seen in the context of longer processes of change and of the problems that beset archaeological and historical evidence from this period. This lecture will consider the key question of who and what was 'Roman' in 4th century Britain as a prelude to thinking about what exactly changed in the early 5th century, and why.
British Museum Lunchtime Lecture Series
Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, 1.15pm
May 6th, 2010
Professor Michael Fulford: Calleva: facing up to Rome
Continuing excavations in the Iron Age and Roman town of Calleva (Silchester, Hampshire) are producing plentiful evidence of the changing character of the settlement before and during the first generations of the Roman occupation of southern Britain. The lecture will explore these changes and their implications for the inhabitants' relations with the new regime.
May 13th, 2010
Professor Alan Bowman: The Vindolanda Writing-tablets
The lecture will highlight the importance of the Museum's unique collection of Roman writing-tablets from the fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall.
June 3rd, 2010
Dr Andrew Burnett: Hordes and hoards in Roman Britain
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Roman Society, we look at how archaeological discoveries over the last 100 years have changed our picture of Roman Britain.
June 10th, 2010
Professor Peter Wiseman: Images and Texts: Ariadne’s Aria
Archaeologists and classicists are interested in two different sorts of survival from the Roman world - artefacts and texts. It's when the two sorts of evidence are combined that we may hope to get interesting results. This lecture starts from an engraved bronze chest in the British Museum, and moves from there to the texts of Ovid's Fasti and Catullus' poem 64, with the hope of revealing something we didn't know about Roman show business. Ariadne's aria was probably sung by an actress who had just taken her clothes off on stage.