B.A., Anthropology and History, University of Wyoming, 2013 M.A., Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, UC Berkeley, 2017
Black received her undergraduate education at the University of Wyoming, where she also completed fieldwork in the Roman world alongside historical and native American archaeology in Wyoming. Her undergraduate thesis considered issues of Roman identity and so-called “Romanisation.”
Her primary graduate fields of research are in Roman ceramics analysis and the archaeology of the Roman economy; she has worked with the Palatine East Pottery Project (PEPP)...
My research is focused on the Eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic period, and more specifically the regional identity of Kilikia. I have observed that the Seleukids’ conceptualization of Kilikia as a geographic area that was administratively detached from the rest of Asia Minor reflected, concurrently, actual and perceived differences between Kilikia and the other regional structures around it. Consequently, the Seleukids and, indeed, the Romans as their hegemonic successors, took an epistemological stance on the organization of their world when...
B. A., Classics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 2020
I began my academic career at Hobart and William Smith Colleges where I double majored in Economics and Classics with honors. For my senior thesis, I conducted an heterodox economic analysis of Roman Red Sea trade; I argued for the inversion of Polanyi’s methods of economic integration, focusing on the intersection of market exchange and long-distance trade in the Egyptian Eastern Desert. At Berkeley, I have conducted more qualitative economic studies, focusing on the experience of laborers and the development of human capital...
I received a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 2017, where I majored in the History of Art. My undergraduate research focused primarily on Greek art and architecture of the Archaic period and, more specifically, on Attic pottery. My desire to understand the connections between the images on Attic pottery and the socio-political climate of the period led to a close examination of the Attic Black-Figure collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. This research culminated in my undergraduate thesis in which I proposed a new interpretation for the interaction...
B.A., University of Chicago, 2015. I received my B.A. in Classics with a minor in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of Chicago in 2015. In my honors thesis, I examined the role of Sumerian motifs in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and used them as a lens to examine differences between ancient Greek and Mesopotamian conceptions of divinity, power, identity, and the role of women.While at the University of Chicago, I worked as a Metcalf Fellow at the Oriental Institute, where I contributed to the Writing in Early Mesopotamia project. I joined the Graduate Group in...
BA, Boston College, 2009 MA, University of Arizona, 2017 Elizabeth received a B.A. in History from Boston College in 2009, where she majored in History with a minor in Ancient Civilizations. In 2017, Elizabeth received her M.A. in Classics from the University of Arizona. Her Master’s thesis examined the architectural anomalies observed in the Classical temple at the sanctuary of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai in ancient Arkadia. These anomalies were considered through a comparison with the temple’s Archaic predecessor and were explored within the context of the ongoing Messenian Wars and the...
B.A., University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2016 I received my B.A. from UW Madison in 2016 after double-majoring in Art History and Classical Humanities and enjoyed having Berkeley native Patricia Rosenmeyer and AHMA alumnus Nicholas Cahill as my dual thesis advisors. I have participated in several archaeological digs, most recently as an excavator in Sardis, Turkey. Though my undergraduate career certainly focused on the art and archaeology of the Aegean world, I took every opportunity to incorporate Egyptology in my studies. My senior honors thesis explored the cultural syncretism of the...
My primary interests include Greek, Demotic, and Coptic papyrology, the archaeology of Greco-Roman Egypt, the archaeology of papyrology, and the physicality of ancient texts. I am passionate about diversifying the fields of Archaeology and Greco-Roman Classics to include those accounts of the people who have been historically oppressed and underrepresented. I have worked on translating unpublished papyri in Coptic and Greek for Bryn Mawr College and my recent work has been focused on lexicographical papyrology and the usage of lexical papyri.
M.A., Ancient History & Classical Philology, Scuola Normale Superiore, 2021 M.A., Classics, University of Pisa, 2020 B.A., Classics, University of Pisa, 2018 M.Mus., Classical Guitar, Conservatorio V. Bellini, Catania, 2015
Before coming to Berkeley in Fall 2020, I was trained as an ancient historian and epigraphist in Pisa (Scuola Normale Superiore/University of Pisa), Munich (Ludwig-Maximiliens-Universität) and Vienna (ÖAW, Forschungsgruppe Epigraphik). While approaching the Greco-Roman world, I try to combine philological care, spatial and material awareness, and a particular...