The University of Sheffield
Department of Archaeology

Dr Maureen CarrollMaureen_Carroll

Reader in Roman Archaeology

Director of Learning and Teaching

BA Honours (first class) in Classical Studies, Brock University; MA Classical Archaeology, Indiana University; PhD Classical Archaeology, Indiana University and Freie Universität, Berlin

Email address
p.m.carroll@sheffield.ac.uk

Telephone
+44 (0)114-2222959

Department address
Department of Archaeology
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET

Biography

I earned my degrees in Classics and Classical Archaeology in Canada, the U.S.A. and Germany, and upon completion of my PhD in 1983 I worked as a professional archaeologist in Germany for many years, leaving posts at the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne and Cologne University to take up the position of lecturer in Roman archaeology at Sheffield in 1997.

I have conducted numerous archaeological fieldwork projects in Cyprus, North Africa, Germany, Britain and Italy, most recently at Pompeii.

Research interests

My research interests in Roman archaeology are varied. A particular theme of my research is Roman death, burial and commemoration, and especially Latin funerary epigraphy, throughout the Roman empire, with a focus on Italy and continental Europe.

Another primary area of my research is the archaeology and history of ancient gardens in Roman Europe and the Mediterranean. Since 2007 I also have been investigating the role of clothing in expressing identities in the Roman world.

Current research projects

Infant death and burial in Roman Italy
This project gathers primary evidence (archaeology, epigraphy, literature, art) to explore the relationship between the daily realities of, and the literary rhetoric about, earliest childhood, infant health, and the death of newborns and nurslings.

Clothing, ethnicity and gender in funerary and votive sculpture in Roman Germania Inferior and Pannonia
This EU-funded project takes a fresh approach to analysing the role of pictorial depictions of male and female dress in funerary portraits and votive sculpture in expressing ethnicity and gender on the Rhine and Danube frontiers of the Roman empire.

Research supervision

I have supervised and co-supervised MA and PhD dissertations on a variety of topics ranging from the burial of the urban poor in Italy in the late Roman Republic and early Empire, to the introduction and cultivation of new wheat crops in the Roman period in the Mediterranean and Western Europe, and Roman women as public benefactors.

I am interested in supervising research students who have an interest in:

Teaching

Undergraduate

MA level

Selected publications

Spirits of the Dead. Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006

Boschetti sacri e giardini dei templi nella Grecia antica, in Il Giardino antico da Babilonia a Roma. Scienza, arte e natura. Florence: Sillabe, 2007, 48-53

Vox tua nempe mea est. Dialogues with the dead in Roman funerary commemoration, Accordia Research Papers 11, 2007/2008, 37-80

Exploring the Sanctuary of Venus and its sacred grove. Politics, cult and identity in Roman Pompeii, Papers of the British School at Rome 78, 2010, 63-106

Götter, Sterbliche und ethnische Identität am Niederrhein: Die Aussage der römischen Weihedenkmäler, Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter 19, 2010, 97-106

“The mourning was very good”. Liberation and Liberality in Roman Funerary Commemoration, in V. Hope and J. Huskinson (eds.), Memory and Mourning: Studies on Roman Death, Oxford: Oxbow, 2011, 125-148

Living through the Dead. Burial and Commemoration in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxbow, 2011 (with J. Rempel)

Memoria and Damnatio Memoriae. Preserving and erasing identities in Roman funerary commemoration, in M. Carroll and J. Rempel (eds.), Living Through the Dead. Burial and Commemoration in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxbow, 2011, 65-90

Full publications list

Conferences

Organising Chair at Roman Archaeology Conference, Session on Child Health and Death in Roman Italy and Beyond, Frankfurt, Germany, March 2012
Organising Chair at International Roman Frontier Studies Conference, Session on Families and Dependents, Rus, Bulgaria, September 2012
Organiser of international workshop The Fabric of Family Life in Classical Antiquity, University of Sheffield, November 2011
Organiser of international conference Dressing the Dead. Clothing, Textiles and Bodily Adornment from Funerary contexts in the Graeco-Roman World, University of Sheffield, May 2010
Keynote lecture at the international conference Mors omnibus Instat. Aspectos arqueológicos, epigráficos y rituales de la muerte en el Occidente Romano, Tudela, Spain, October 2009
Keynote lecture at the international conference Oikos – Familia: The family in the ancient Greco-Roman society. Framing the discipline in the 21st century, Gothenburg, Sweden, November 2009

Other professional activities