Members of the Durham Centre for Roman Cultural Studies
Dr Edmund Thomas, MA (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon), PGCE (KCL), MSc Econ (Aberystwyth)
Contact Dr Edmund Thomas (email at e.v.thomas@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
Edmund Thomas is Lecturer in Ancient Visual and Material Culture. His main research interest is Roman architecture and its relation to Roman society and culture. His book Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford University Press) appeared in 2007. He has written articles on the Pantheon in Rome and on aspects of Roman epigraphy, and has jointly authored a work on the historical topography of Winchester from the late Iron Age to 1800 for the Historic Towns Atlas series, also to be published by OUP. He has spent lengthy periods of research in Rome and has been involved in archaeological excavations at Butrint in Albania. He is also a qualified archivist and has a special interest in the description and management of architectural drawings. He is presently completing two books, Words on Buildings: relations between architecture and text since antiquity, and Keystones: dialogues between architecture, philosophy, and politics.
Research Interests
- Roman Architecture
- Monumentality
- Ancient Aesthetics
- Roman Epigraphy
- Classicism
- Roman Sarcophagi
- Vitruvius
Selected Publications
Books: authored
- Thomas, Edmund (Forthcoming). Words on Buildings: Relations between Architecture and Text since Antiquity. Oxford University Press.
- Thomas, Edmund (2007). Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Conference papers
- Thomas, Edmund (1994), The monumentality of the basilica stoa at Thera and Antoninus Pius, in Xavier Dupré i Raventó&s eds, International Association of Classical Archaeology La ciutat en el món romà actes XIV Congrés Internacional d'Arqueologia Clàssica = La ciudad en el mundo romano: actas XIV Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Clásica. Tarragona, Spain, Comitè Organitzador del XIV C.I.A.C., Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Tarragona.
Edited works: conference proceedings
- Kaizer, Ted, Leone, Anna, Thomas, Edmund & Witcher, Robert (2013). Cities and Gods: Religious Space in Transition. Cities and Gods: Religious Space in Transition, Durham, England, BABESCH, Annual Papers in Mediterranean Archaeology.
Edited works: contributions
- Thomas, Edmund (Accepted). Reflecting on architecture. In A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics. Destree, Pierre & Murray, Penelope Blackwell.
- Thomas, Edmund (2013). Introduction: Religious Architecture in the Roman Empire, East and West. In Cities and Gods: Religious Space in Transition. Kaizer, Ted, Leone, Anna, Thomas, Edmund & Witcher, Robert BABESCH, Annual Papers in Mediterranean Archaeology. 7-8.
- Thomas, Edmund (2013). The Severan period. In Blackwell Companion to Roman Architecture. Quenemoen, Caroline & Ulrich, Roger Wiley-Blackwell.
- Thomas, Edmund (2006). 'Atrium', 'Palace', 'Portico', 'Forum'. In The Harvard Companion to the Classical Tradition. Grafton, Anthony, Most, Glenn & Settis, Salvatore Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Essays in edited volumes
- Thomas,Edmund (2013). Translating Roman architecture into Greek regional identities. In 59e Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique de la Fondation Hardt du 27 au 31 août 2012: Les Grecs héritiers des Romains – The Greeks Heirs of the Romans. Schubert,Paul Fondation Hardt. 59.
- Thomas, Edmund (2011). ‘Houses of the dead’? Columnar sarcophagi as ‘micro-architecture’. In Life, death and representation: some new work on Roman sarcophagi. Elsner, Jas & Huskinson, Janet Berlin: De Gruyter. 387-435.
- Thomas, Edmund (2010). Architecture. In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies. Barchiesi, Alessandro & Scheidel, Walter Oxford University Press. 838-858.
- Thomas, Edmund (2007). Metaphor and identity in Severan architecture: the Septizodium between reality and fantasy. In Severan Culture. Swain, Simon, Harrison, Stephen & Elsner, Jas Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 327-367.
- Thomas, Edmund (2004). From the Pantheon of the Gods to the Pantheon of Rome. In Pantheons: Transformations of a monumental idea. Wrigley, R. & Craske, M. Aldershot: Ashgate. 11-34.
- Thomas, Edmund (1998). AB URBE CONDITA TRI[.]: A new commemoration of the imperial tribunician powers from the imperial vicus (Castelporziano). In Castelporziano III: Campagne di scavo e restauro 1987-1991. Lauro, Maria Giuseppina Rome: Viella. 137-149.
Journal papers: academic
- Thomas,Edmund (2013). Chiasmus in Art and Text. Greece and Rome 60(01): 50-88.
- Thomas, Edmund (2012). "Nero's Tomb" and the Crisis of the Third Century: Roman Sarcophagi as Public and Private Monuments. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 61/62(Spring/Fall): 132-151.
- Thomas, Edmund (1997). The architectural history of the Pantheon in Rome from Agrippa to Septimius Severus via Hadrian. Hephaistos 15(1997): 163-186.
- Thomas, Edmund & Witschel, Christian (1992). Constructing reconstruction: claim and reality of Roman rebuilding inscriptions in the Latin West. Papers of the British School at Rome 60(1992): 135-177.
Journal papers: online
- Thomas, Edmund (2012). Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome: the so-called 'Villa Claudia' at Anguillara Sabazia. Water History 4(1): 57-78.
Other media: research
- Biddle, Martin, Keene, Derek & Thomas, Edmund (2006). Wall-map of Historic Winchester, around the year 1800.
Supervises
For details of research postgraduates associated with the Roman Centre, please see our Postgraduates page.
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