Director:
Dr Malcolm Choat
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
BA (Hons) Qld, PhD Macquarie.
Research Interests: Graeco-Roman Egypt and the interaction of Classical (Greek and Roman) and Egyptian cultures from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquest (332 BCE - 642 CE), and early Christianity, particularly from a papyrological perspective.
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Deputy Directors:
Professor Alanna Nobbs
Department of Ancient History
BA Syd., PhD Syd.
Research Interests: Historical background of Early Christianity; Greek papyri documenting the Christianisation of Egypt; Late antique and early Byzantine history and historiography.
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Professor Samuel Lieu
Department of Ancient History
MA Camb., D Phil. Oxford, FRAS, FRHistS, FSA, FAHA
Research Interests: History and historiography Manichaeism; Silk Road Studies.
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Secretary of the Executive Committee:
Dr Linda Evans
ARC APD, Department of Ancient History
Research Interests: Tthe representation and role of animals in the ancient Mediterranean region and the human-animal relationship in the ancient world.
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Centre Members
Assoc. Prof. Javier Alvarez-Mon
Associate Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology and Art
Alvarez-Mon's interests are in the preservation, study and publication of the cultural heritage of ancient Near Eastern civilizations. His research has focussed on three areas of study: (i) delineation of Elamite art and culture; (ii) re-definition of the genesis and cultural characteristics of the Persian Empire; and (iii) the development of new tools of artistic analysis for the understanding and appreciation of non-western art.
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Dr Lea Beness
Senior Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Lea's research interests focus primarily on the politics of the Late Roman Republic.
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Dr Susanne Binder
Associate Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Susanne's research interests focus primarily on Ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom, administration and society, prosopography, Egyptian archaeology and material culture.
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Dr Shirley Chan
Senior Lecturer, Department of International Studies
Shirley's major research interests are traditional Chinese thought, philosophy, classical Chinese literature, Chinese intellectual history and Chinese early texts. She is currently researching early Chinese thought as presented in the excavated Guodian corpus.
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Dr Danjel Dzino
ARC APD, Department of Ancient History
Danijel's research interests are focused on the region of ancient and early medieval Illyricum. His particular research passions are the issues related to the identity of the pre-Roman indigenous population (the so-called "Illyrians") and their identity-transformations in the Roman and post-Roman periods.
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Dr Trevor Evans
Senior Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Trevor has broad research interests in the history of the Greek and Latin languages within their changing cultural contexts, including the complex issues of linguistic diversity, multilingualism, and ancient literacy. He has published on the language of Greek non-literary papyri and related sources, the language of the Septuagint, and Latin lexicography.
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Dr Andrew Gillett
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
Andrew's field of research is Late Antiquity, the intersection between the Ancient World (of classical Greece, Rome, and Persia) and the Medieval/early Modern period (of western Europe, Byzantium, and Islam), with emphasis on western Europe from the fourth to the sixth centuries.
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Assoc. Prof. Damian Gore
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
Damian's research involves both inorganic and organic environmental geochemistry, and he is actively exploring different research themes which use those skills. Non-destructive analysis has been a recurrent theme within his analytical programs, because historical artefacts are a valuable and finite resource.
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Assoc. Prof. Tom Hillard
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
Tom's research interests are broad, but focus principally on Roman social history, and the politics of the Late Roman Republic.
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Professor Naguib Kanawati
Professor, Department of Ancient History
Naguib's research interests are in Egyptian history, civilisation and language; excavating and recording tombs at Giza and Saqqara.
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Dr Jana Jones
Research Fellow, Department of Ancient History
Jana Jones is a Macquarie University Research Fellow (2014 to 2017) in the Department of Ancient History. Her current research project is entitled 'Secrets of the Ancient Egyptian embalmers: an archaeological, historical and scientific investigation of the origins and development of mummification'.
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Assoc. Prof. Paul McKechnie
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
Paul's research interests are in Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Roman History, and Early Christianity.
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Dr Gunner Mikkelsen
Senior Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Gunner's research interests are focused on Sinology and the history of religions, especially the spread and meeting of religions along the Silk Road, in Central Asia, and in China.
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Dr. Brent Nongbri
Macquarie University Research Fellow, Department of Ancient History
Brent's interests center on method and theory in the study of religion and the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. With regard to the former, he is especially interested in problems surrounding the use of religion as category for studying the ancient world. In the sphere of material culture and archaeology, Dr. Nongbri specializes in papyrology and early Christian manuscripts.
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Assoc. Prof. Boyo Ockinga
Associate Professor, Department of Ancient History
Boyo's research interests are Ancient Egyptian philology, history and religion; Egypt and Old Testament; Egyptian New Kingdom tombs. Since 1984 Boyo has conducted regular fieldwork projects in Egypt at a number of sites and since 1991 he has directed the Macquarie Theban Tombs Project at Dra Abu El Naga.
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Dr Ken Parry
Senior Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Ken's research takes in the broad swept of Byzantine history from 330 to 1453, but more especially Byzantine cultural and intellectual history, particularly the period from the seventh through to the tenth century.
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Dr Ken Sheedy
Senior Lecturer, Department of Ancient History; Director, Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies
Ken fields of research are Greek numismatics, and the art and archaeology of Greece with emphasis on the archaic period. He has a special interest in the archaeology and history of the Cycladic Islands.
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Dr Yann Tristant
Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Yann's research interests are Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt; settlement archaeology; geo-archaeology; human occupation and natural landscape; archaeology of the Nile Delta and the Memphite Region.
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Professor Laurence Welborn
CORE in Ancient Cultures
Larry's research interests are the New Testament and Early Christian literature in its Graeco-Roman context.
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Dr Alexandra Woods
Lecturer, Department of Ancient History
Alex's fields of research are, broadly, Egyptian art as well as history and language from the Old to Middle Kingdoms.
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