Edith Hall
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edithmayhall.bsky.social
Edith Hall
@edithmayhall.bsky.social

Durham University Classics Prof keen on Aristotle, visual art, Greek theatre/pots, labour/anti-racist history, prison education, Parthenon reunification. All views my own. Also on Twitter @edithmayhall

Edith Hall is a British scholar of classics, specialising in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. From 2006 until 2011 she held a chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she founded and directed the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome until November 2011. She resigned over a dispute regarding funding for classics after leading a public campaign, which was successful, to prevent cuts to or the closure of the Royal Holloway Classics department. Until 2022, she was a professor at the Department of Classics at King's College London. She also co-founded and is Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, Chair of the Gilbert Murray Trust, and Judge on the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation. Her prizewinning doctoral thesis was awarded at Oxford. In 2012 she was awarded a Humboldt Research Prize to study ancient Greek theatre in the Black Sea, and in 2014 she was elected to the Academy of Europe. She lives in Cambridgeshire. .. more

Art 25%
History 24%

12 gods for Xmas with interesting transport modes #4. Hephaestus returns to Olympus in glory, holding hammer and vine branches, on a perky ass, with a white blaze, staring at the viewer. Interesting use of the animal's anatomy in figuring out how to transport a full wine jug.

Cheered on going to British Library to read about Calvinists’ internal quarrels over admissibility of Aristotle’s Ethics (I know how to have a good time) to be queuing behind two Scottish elves who clearly haven’t heard that Calvin banned Christmas

12 gods for Xmas with interesting transport modes #3. Athena drives two-horsed chariot in company with Amazons. Not an unusual idea, but merits inclusion by its extraordinary beauty--the horses' expressions, the snake-fringed aegis, the sense of movement

12 gods with interesting transport modes for Xmas #2: Poseidon on a spectacular hippocampus; drinking cup made in Athens, now in the Metropolitan Museum. Left-hand driving so trident can be brandished in the right. The scales, forked tail and spotted wings are thrilling.

For all the mums out there who've spent weeks obtaining and wrapping stocking presents. Santa Claus wasn't the first celebrity to drive a deer-drawn chariot. Artemis is #1 of a series of 12 gods for Christmas.

After 40 years' research I rarely find an image I've never seen of important productions of Greek-drama related performances, so I'm thrilled to have come across this illustration of nonpareil ballet dancer Gaëtan Vestris as Jason in London in 1781. The crumbling pillars! The dragon! The tiny child!

Classics-themed ad #5. At last we learn what it was the Pythia consumed before she ascended the tripod that made her produce incomprehensible oracles. Not cannabis, not magic mushrooms, not gas but PEPTONISED COCOA MILK

Proud of my baking this year

Commercialised Xmas commodityfest Classics-themed ad #4: "She likes the ancient philosophers. It's all Greek to him". Not even Benson and Hedges, which I did smoke long ago, would make this reader of ancient philosophers flirt with that smarmy youth.

I know!

Commercialised Xmas commodityfest Classics-themed ad #3: The overt message is that the Sabine women were raped because their rapists' tobacco had not been "purified" like that in Lucky Strike cigarettes. But subliminally it seems to mean you'll get laid if you smoke them. Do you agree?

Commercialised Xmas commodityfest Classics-themed ad #2: Every girl needs a Hercules corset to keep her tummy from protruding.

In the commercial commodity season, time to return to my old theme of Classics-themed ads. #1. If I had to choose any ancient man to resurrect with my pink lipstick it would certainly not be Augustus Caesar. Perhaps Aristophanes or Aristotle.

Beat winter blues #6. I'm holding a party on 23rd December and this will be the formal post-prandial challenge to all attendees.

An article I wrote ages ago on comedy in Plato's early dialogues is in a volume edited by others that has finally got the go-ahead from the publisher (CUP). Then I came across this, which just about sums up my argument.

Brazilian cover for Aristotle's Way. Very pastel. Not quite sure what architectural orders signify but I'm not complaining. Makes Yer Fink.

Reposted by Edith Hall

🏺 Join Prof. Edith Hall and colleagues as they discuss 'The Bacchae: The Mind of Ancient Greece, Psychoanalysis and Modern British Theatre'

👉 Event organised by the Institute of Psychoanalysis

📅 31 Jan 2026

🔗 tinyurl.com/bdeb3mnt

Beat winter blues #6. Even if you can't summon an outsize Dionysus, a spot of DIY or carpentry can be fun in company. You do need some hammers and someone to stand on the shed you're building and play the trumpet. Made in Athens, now in Berlin.

Beat the winter blues #5: find a consenting companion, festoon yourselves with ivy and swap providing-an-elevated-seat and providing-the-musical-accompaniment services on a brisk dance to the off-licence.

Beat November/December Blues with fun in the Greek sun #4: senior citizens like me can learn to play the cithara, sing a little ditty, and GET IN FORMATION. I can't believe Bluesky is censoring this

Beating November Blues #3: pretend to be Hera getting married to Zeus at a festival, and bribe a friendly serious-faced satyr to wear a splendid crown and protect your lovely coiffure from the elements with an umbrella-cum-parasol.
By ArchaiOptix - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Beating the November / Blues Fun in Greek Sun suggestion #2: hold an impromptu party and a wine bowl balancing competition. Cup by Douris, circa 490 BCE

I hate November so much I'm going to cheer myself up with a new series of some of my favourite ancient Greek pots depicting ways to have fun in the sun: #1: Donkey ride. Athenian cup by Epictetus c. 510 BCE

The play included an enactment of a prophecy by Teiresias about the end of the civilised world

Thespian friends! This day in 534 BCE is traditionally held to have seen the premiere of the first ever theatre performance by Thespis of Icaria, who took his cart of masks round the villages of Attica to impersonate mythical figures in marketplaces.

Reposted by Edith Hall

The Theatre of Dionysus
Professor Edith Hall
Gresham College
youtu.be/7cjPtH5vA5I?...
The Theatre of Dionysus
YouTube video by Gresham College
youtu.be

On #UnescoWorldChildrensDay just a lovely mosaic from Villa del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, 4th century EC. Boys, birds, bushes and a chirpy caterpillar. Lovely.

Comrades! This is how to explain the Greek dramatic chorus, performed as part of military training of youth. THRILLING. Dance and Drill. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI93...
Māori All Blacks perform their haka against Ireland
YouTube video by All Blacks
www.youtube.com

People often ask whether I am related to the great American archaeologist Edith Hall (Dohan). Sadly, no. She just looked so cool riding to her sites. I "dig" the hat-and-cravat look.

On world drum day, here are two lovely ancient ladies banging a tympanon (frame-drum).