Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town

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Pompeii may still confuse and challenge, but Beard’s informative reappraisal vividly evokes the way it was. And travelers will welcome her practical advice on making a visit. ” —Judith Chettle, Richmond Times-Dispatch

Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town | Mary Beard | The Guardian Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town | Mary Beard | The Guardian

She goes behind the scenes of the Great Pompeii Project, where restoration teams have gradually removed the layers of time and deterioration from the frescoes and mosaics of houses closed to the public for decades. And with the help of point-cloud scanning technology, Pompeii is seen and explained like never before.

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Religions of Rome (with John North and Simon Price, 1998); ISBN 0-521-30401-6 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-45015-2 (vol. 2) In February 2018, in response to a report in The Times of Oxfam employees engaging in sexual exploitation in disaster zones, Beard tweeted "Of course one can't condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain 'civilised' values in a disaster zone. And overall I still respect those who go in and help out, where most of us would not tread." [82] This led to widespread criticism, in which Mary Beard was accused of racism. [83] In response, Beard posted a picture of herself crying, explaining that she had been subjected to a "torrent of abuse" and that "I find it hard to imagine that anyone out there could possibly think that I am wanting to turn a blind eye to the abuse of women and children". [84] Personal life [ edit ] Beard filming in Rome, 2012 Bomb threat tweet sent to classicist Mary Beard". BBC News. 4 August 2013 . Retrieved 29 January 2017.

Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life - BBC Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life - BBC

With unparalleled access to Pompeii and featuring cutting-edge modern technology, Mary Beard guides us through this amazing slice of the ancient world. As time has passed, her writing style, compared with the early, careful academic articles, has become more like her spoken voice. The Beard of the first Vestals article of 1980 would never have used, as an epigraph, a quote from a Procol Harum lyric – as did the Beard of the later Vestals paper repudiating her earlier ideas. “I saw eventually that you could write ‘scholarly articles’ in a style that felt right for you and didn’t feel significantly different from the way you wrote a review,” she told me. Mary Beard attended an all-female direct grant school. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations; this was initially to earn money for recreational spending, but she began to find the study of antiquity unexpectedly interesting. But it was not all that interested the young Beard. She had friends in many age groups, and a number of trangressions: "Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl." Inside Culture Season 1". Radio Times. 8 September 2020. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021 . Retrieved 1 August 2021. In the The Fires of Vesuvius, [Beard] gives us a wonderfully comprehensive picture of the city that has long fascinated historians, archaeologists and classicists… For a historian such as Beard, drawing on the latest archaeological findings, it is possible to write with authority how people of the first century ate their meals and lighted their homes, earned a living, governed themselves and attended to their bodily needs. For her—as she shows in this book—Pompeii is not a dead but a living city. ” —David Walton, Milwaukee Journal-SentinelI personally am more attracted by the ancient Greek culture than the Roman. This influences my rating.

Mary Beard: ‘The last thing I’d want is a world in which we Mary Beard: ‘The last thing I’d want is a world in which we

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Lego model of Cambridge classicist Prof Mary Beard created". BBC News. 27 January 2018 . Retrieved 2 December 2020. Whether she’s poring over graffiti about gladiatorial machismo in Pompeii or writing about a ‘wistful nostalgia for the erotic dimension of classical pedagogy,’ Britain’s most outspoken classicist is hilarious, staggeringly knowledgeable and utterly brilliant. ” — Vogue UK There’s a recent vogue for retelling the stories of the sidelined women of classical history and literature. Does reimagining their lives help or hinder our understanding of the period?In 2019, Beard appeared in an episode of The Grand Tour, having dinner with host James May, in his effort to get his car photographed by paparazzi. [52] Corresponding Members - Archaeological Institute of America". Archaeological.org . Retrieved 10 November 2018. Laity, Interview by Paul (10 November 2007). "A life in writing: Mary Beard, Britain's best-known classicist". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 October 2020. It was not until 1989 that she published the first book under her name alone – and it was nothing to do with classics. It was called the Good Working Mother’s Guide, a practical handbook that included advice on maternity benefit, how to interview a nanny, and the best way to hand-express milk (“First of all stroke or massage your breasts for a few minutes, starting from the top and working down and round towards the nipple … ”). It was an unlikely project for a young classics don, but was an example of Beard’s pedagogical instinct in action: reading it, you can sense she didn’t want to waste painfully acquired knowledge if it could be useful to others. “It’s true,” she told me, “that millions of women have sussed this and don’t immediately think: ‘I’ll write a book about it.’ But it seemed a fun thing to do.”

BBC One - Pompeii: New Secrets Revealed with Mary Beard

He'd probably be arrested nowadays but it was wonderful stuff. You had to stand on a chair - the Magic Chair - repeat the spell, "Beware, beware, the magic chair" - and recite poetry. Anything from Eliot to Bob Dylan.' Another volcanic laugh. 'I did so little science it's an embarrassment.' What else did she read? 'Loads of poetry and the novels of Margaret Drabble. You know: How we were going to go to Cambridge, and get pregnant and go into the BBC.' Patterson, Christina (15 March 2013). "Mary Beard interview: 'I hadn't realised that there were people like". The Independent . Retrieved 3 December 2017. And how does Beard herself fare with the dormouse test? Sure enough, some three-quarters of the way through Pompeii, we are shown the illustration of a "dormouse-jar": a curious pot in which the wretched rodents could be kept alive while being fattened up. It is an image that perfectly sums up the portrait of Pompeii we are given in this learned and fascinating book: a myth that is not wholly a myth, but something even more remarkable and strange. Mary Beard will be in conversation with Charlotte Higgins at a Guardian Live event at the Shaw Theatre in London on Friday 16 March. Details: theguardian.com/guardianliveBeard's standalone documentary Julius Caesar Revealed was shown on BBC One in February 2018. [50] In March, she wrote and presented "How Do We Look?" and "The Eye of Faith", two of the nine episodes in Civilisations, a reboot of the 1969 series by Kenneth Clark. [51] Part of the trouble in dealing with Pompeii – with any ancient history – is that so much is lost. Most of the time we’re dealing with negative evidence: What isn’t there? What don’t we know? What can’t we prove? If Beard has a shortcoming, it’s that she spends too much time poking holes in other people’s theories, without advancing any theories to take their place. It can be wearying, after awhile, to learn all the things we’ll never learn. For the most part, though, Beard’s chipper tone makes this a minor annoyance.