Staff

Dr Ted Kaizer

Contact Dr Ted Kaizer (email at ted.kaizer@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Ted Kaizer is Senior Lecturer in Roman Culture and History. He was educated at Leiden (MA, 1995) and Brasenose College, Oxford (DPhil, 2000), and held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (2002-2005) before coming to Durham. His main research interest is the social and religious history of the Near East in the Late Hellenistic and Roman period. He is the author of The Religious Life of Palmyra (Stuttgart, 2002) and has written articles on various aspects of religion and history of the Classical Levant. His present research project concerns a study of the social patterns of worship at Dura-Europos, a fortress town on the Middle Euphrates, and in this context he is also preparing two historiographical volumes (in the Bibliotheca Cumontiana) for the Academia Belgica and the Belgian Historical Institute (Rome). He has been awarded a Sir Derman Christopherson/Sir James Knott Foundation Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study of Durham University for Michaelmas Term 2013. He has widely travelled through the Middle East, and is a Member of Council of the Council for British Research in the Levant. 

Areas of Doctoral Supervision

Most areas and periods of Roman culture and history, especially social and religious history in the imperial period, and in particular of the provinces in the eastern half of the empire.

Current PhD Students

• Linda Challis, The Roman Way of Welfare
• Chiara Grigolin, Memories (and pseudo-memories) of Seleucid origins in Seleucid foundations
• Donald MacLennan, Administrative Development in the 'Client States' of the Near East under the Aegis of Rome, 63 BC - AD 224
• Seb Nichols, 'The Gods of the Peoples are Idols' (Ps. 96:5): Paganism and Idolatry in Near Eastern Christianity
• Rik van Wijlick, Near Eastern Kingdoms and the Roman Empire in the Civil War of 44-31 BC

Past Research Students

• Polly Weddle, Touching the Gods: Physical Interaction with Cult Statues in the Roman World (PhD 2010)
• Peter Alpass, The Religious Life of Nabataea (PhD 2011)
• Jennifer Wilkinson, Mark and his Gentile Audience. A Traditio-Historical and Socio-Cultural Investigation of Mk 4.34-9.29 and its Interface with Gentile Polytheism in the Roman Near East (PhD 2012 - co-supervised with Dept. of Theology & Religion)

Research Interests

• Local identities in the Classical Levant
• Religions in the Graeco-Roman world
• Social and religious history of the Roman Near East

Publications

Books: authored

• Kaizer, Ted (2002). The Religious Life of Palmyra. A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

Books: edited

• Kaizer, Ted, Leone, Anna, Thomas, Edmund & Witcher, Robert (2013). Cities and Gods. Religious Space in Transition. BABesch. Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology. Supplement 22 - 2012. Peeters.
• Hekster, Olivier & Kaizer, Ted. (2011). Frontiers in the Roman World. Proceedings of the Ninth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Durham, 16-19 April 2009). Impact of Empire 13. Leiden - Boston: Brill.
• Kaizer, Ted & Facella, Margherita. (2010). Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East. Oriens et Occidens 19. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2008). The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 164. Leiden - Boston: Brill.

Edited sources

• Kaizer, Ted. (2010). Eupolemos (723). Brill's New Jacoby. Leiden: Brill.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2010). Pseudo-Eupolemos (724). Brill's New Jacoby. Leiden: Brill.

Essays in edited volumes

• Kaizer, Ted. (2010). From Zenobia to Alexander the Sleepless: paganism, Judaism and Christianity at Late Roman Palmyra. In Zeitreisen: Syrien - Palmyra - Rom. Festschrift für Andreas Schmidt-Colinet zum 65. Geburtstag. Bastl, B., Gassner, V. & Muss, U. Vienna: Phoibos-Verlag. 113-123.
• Kaizer, Ted (2010). Funerary cults at Palmyra. In Cultural Messages in the Graeco-Roman World: BABESCH Suppl. 15. Hekster, O. & Mols, S.T.A.M. Leuven - Paris - Walpole, MA: Peeters. 23-31.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2009). Patterns of worship in Dura-Europos: a case study of religious life in the Classical Levant outside the main cult centres. In Les religions orientales dans le monde grec et romain cent ans après Cumont (1906-2006) Bilan historique et historiographique. Bonnet, C., Pirenne-Delforge, V. & Praet, D. Brussels - Rome: Brepols Publishers. 153-172.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2009). Religion and language in Dura-Europos. In From Hellenism to Islam Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East. Cotton, H.M., Hoyland, R.G., Price, J.J. & Wasserstein, D.J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 235-253.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2009). The Parthian and early Sasanian empires, c. 247 BC - AD 300. In The Great Empires of the Ancient World. Harrison, T. London: Thames & Hudson. 174-195.
• Kaizer, Ted (2007). Religion in the Roman East. In A Companion to Roman Religion: Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Rüpke, Jörg Oxford: Blackwell. 446-456.

Journal papers: academic

• Hekster, Olivier & Kaizer, Ted (2012). An accidental tourist? Caracalla's fatal trip to the temple of the Moon at Carrhae/Harran. Ancient Society 42: 89-107.
• Kaizer, Ted (2011). Interpretations of the myth of Andromeda at Iope. Syria 88: 323-339.
• Kaizer, Ted (2007). 'Palmyre, cité grecque'? A question of coinage. Klio 89(1): 39-60.
• Kaizer, Ted (2006). Capital punishment at Hatra: gods, magistrates and laws in the Roman-Parthian period. Iraq 68: 139-153.
• Kaizer, Ted (2006). In search of Oriental cults: methodological problems concerning ‘the particular’ and ‘the general’ in Near Eastern religion in the Roman period. Historia 55(1): 26-47.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2005). Leucothea as Mater Matuta at colonia Berytus a note on local mythology in the Levant and the Hellenisation of a Phoenician city. Syria 82: 199-206.
• Hekster, Olivier & Kaizer, Ted (2004). Mark Antony and the raid on Palmyra: reflections on Appian, Bella Civilia V.9. Latomus 63: 70-80.
• Kaizer, Ted (2004). Religious mentality in Palmyrene documents. Klio 86(1): 165-184.
• Kaizer, Ted (2004). Some remarks about religious life in the Decapolis. Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft 38: 173-185.

Journal papers: popular

• Kaizer, Ted (2009). Hatra: temples, dieux et cultes. Les Dossiers d’Archéologie 334: 34-39.
• Kaizer, Ted (2006). Mithras, or ‘the passion of the bull-slayer’. Omnibus 52: 27-29.
• Kaizer, Ted (2005). Ein Haus der Götter: Kulte und Religion in der Karawanenstadt Palmyra. Welt und Umwelt der Bibel 36(2): 30-35.

Articles: review

• Kaizer, Ted. (2009). Forschungsbericht Römische Religion (2006-2008): 4.6 Orient [2003-2008]. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 11: 359-365.
• Kaizer, Ted. (2008). Old and new discoveries at Palmyra. Journal of Roman Archaeology 21: 652-664.
• Kaizer, Ted (2003). The Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods between local, regional and supra-regional approaches. Scripta Classica Israelica 22: 283-295.