Current Season – 2026

TRAC would like to welcome you to our 2026 webinar series. Register for free for each speaking event on the ticketsource links below.

11/03/2026 – 17:00 GMT – The City of Purple: The Influence of Purple Production on the Roman City of Meninx

Sem Van Atteveld, Leiden University

This study discusses the impact that the murex-purple industry had on the Roman city of Meninx, located on Djerba, Tunisia. Mattingly’s seminal model of the Roman urban economy argues that cities could occupy significant positions within their regional economies; however, focused case studies demonstrating this influence have remained limited. By taking Meninx as a case study, Sam aims to show just how influential a city dominated by the murex-purple industry could be within its local economic landscape.

Sem van Atteveld holds an MA in Ancient History from the University of Leiden, where he specialised in the functioning and impact of Roman luxury material culture. His ongoing research focuses on the production and local economic impact of murex purple in the Roman world, as well as the evolving use of porphyry as a secondary agent.

REGISTER AT https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/theoretical-roman-archaeology-conference/t-aaaazlm

17/03/2026 – 17:00 GMT – Glass gaming counters from Pre-Roman and Roman Iberia

Ilaria Truzzi, University of Reading

The study of games is about much more than just entertainment: games can shed light on social interactions, provide strategic or educational experiences, and reflect beliefs related to chance and divination. Examining differences in games played by children and adults, men and women, or elites and sub-elites can therefore offer valuable insights into social life in the past. Iberia is a unique case-study region, home to many civilizations—Greeks, Carthaginians, Celtiberians, Iberians, and Romans. The cultural diversity these populations brought to the Iberian Peninsula is why this region represents a distinctive setting of intercultural interaction, making it a promising context for uncovering new information about multicultural exchange and cohabitation in the past.

Ilaria Truzzi is a 2nd year PhD student in the department of Classics at the university of Reading. She owns a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in Archaeology, and she is an expert in gaming studies in Antiquity. She is involved in several projects on gaming such as the Gametable COST Action ‘Computational Techniques for TableTop games heritage’ which is a European project that aims to interrogate the use of AI for the understanding of the rules and the playability of ancient games. She is involved in the GameInLab granted project ‘Play and the city: investigating the cultural heritage of games of the City of Rome’, to which she is working as a research assistant for setting up a QGIS database of the findspots of graffiti gaming boards within the Servian Walls in Rome. She also is a member of the organizing committee of the Board Games Studies Colloquium, a series of conference totally dedicated to gaming studies, that is coming to its 28th edition in 2026.

REGISTER AT https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/theoretical-roman-archaeology-conference/t-mjjjezl

24/03/2026 – 17:00 GMT – The Display and Concealment of Decorated Stone Sarcophagi and Lead Coffins

Nicholas Aherne, University of Groningen

During the funeral in the Roman world, the deceased would often become replaced by the image of a burial receptacle, but in some cases this new form of protection and commemoration was only temporarily visible. Ornately decorated lead coffins produced in Roman Phoenicia were concealed from the view of the living after the funeral. Whilst this partly reflects a practice of conspicuous consumption, through their materiality and decoration how did these coffins nonetheless come to shape sensorial experiences? In this paper, I investigate this line of questioning, as raised by a hypogeum nestled in the hinterland of Roman Tyre; it has yielded 29 lead coffins as well as four stone sarcophagi, four wooden coffins, and a single terracotta coffin. This paper explores how such receptacles stimulated emotional, contemplative, and bodily responses amongst the living as they navigated the new boundaries of their relationship with the dead. More specifically, I propose that the lead coffins created a series of material and visual boundaries between the two worlds, their effects supplemented and enhanced by their wider visuo-spatial context: tomb decoration, visible sarcophagi, and grave goods. The lead coffins were operating in somewhat different ways to their stone counterparts: magickal material properties of lead were combined with a distinct iconographic programme centred on replicative and boundary-enforcing themes which could symbolically shield the dead from potential violators, unwanted reusers, and malignant forces, as well as console mourners. More broadly, this paper highlights a region often sidelined in theoretical Roman archaeology. By shifting attention from the well-studied stone sarcophagi of Rome this paper contributes novel perspectives on funerary experiences in the Roman world. Furthermore, the paper reveals the artistic ingenuity of Tyrian workshops and their networks with craftsmen in other regions which helps elucidate wider cross-cultural funerary customs.

REGISTER AT https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/theoretical-roman-archaeology-conference/t-dkkkjqv

31/03/2026 – 17:00 BST – Posthumanist Roman archaeology? Revisiting the Roman military community concept

Dr Ewan Coopey, Macquarie University

Since the 1990s, the field of Roman military studies has significantly expanded its scope, embracing more critical questions, theoretical approaches, and collaborative methodologies. Central to this expansion has been the concept of ‘the Roman military community’ and its emphasis on the lives of those in and around Rome’s armies. This seminar revisits this concept, enhancing it with an assemblage thinking framework adapted from posthumanist archaeology and the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. In line with broader movements across Roman studies, this is done in order to better appreciate the ways in which social life (‘life with others’) has always been multiple and more than (just) human.  

Ewan Coopey is an archaeological theorist specialising in applications of posthumanism to the ancient world. His recently awarded PhD thesis was on the power and place of the more-than-human in the social dynamics of Roman military life. He is also a Research Associate working on the MANTO project at Macquarie University and was a 2025 Junior Fellow at the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies. 

REGISTER AT https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/theoretical-roman-archaeology-conference/t-dkkkjlj