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Rachael Banes

Languages and Literature, University of Birmingham

Thesis title:

Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

This thesis has two facets, the first being the creation of a catalogue of graffiti in the late antique east, c. 300-750 CE. The catalogue will draw from archaeological reports and other corpuses to create a detailed guide to graffiti from the period, including their location, date and a transcription. The second facet of this thesis is the interpretation of this data, to construct an understanding of the sociological and cultural reasons for graffiti, what it represented for late antique communities. I will incorporate theory about modern graffiti to understand the motivations and social values ascribed to graffiti, and whether or not the attitudes towards, and uses of, graffiti varied throughout the east.

Research Area

  • Languages and Literature

Conferences

  • The Interaction between Graffiti and Formal Imagery at Four Cult-Sites in Asia Minor and Palestine c. 300-700 CE- Postgraduate and Early Career Late Antiquity Network (January 2019)

Other Research Interests

  • Visual and Material Culture in Late Antiquity
  • Early Christianity
  • Roman Mortuary Art
  • Heritage Studies, and the dissemination of historical information

Additional Activities

  • Chair of Rosetta Forum, a postgraduate forum in Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology (2018-Present)
  • Co-chair of 2019 University of Birmingham Postgraduate Colloquium in Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

About Me

I am a regular volunteer with Research and Cultural Collections at the University of Birmingham, an am currently working on labelling the archaeology slides. I have also written several times for the collections blog. In 2016 I undertook a project to recreate David Talbot-Rice’s photographs from Mystras. The results of this project, as well as other photographs relating to Christian and Byzantine history, can be found on my online archive Christian and Byzantine Archaeology at https://www.flickr.com/photos/142760224@N05/albums