Dr Peter A. Thompson

After studying at Oxford for my undergraduate degree in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, followed by my MPhil degree in Classical Archaeology, I moved to New York and received my PhD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts in 2026. As a doctoral student I held a number of research and travel fellowships, including Regular Membership and a subsequent Kress Foundation predoctoral fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. I have worked in curatorial and research roles at various museums in Oxford, Cambridge, Athens, and New York, and alongside this lectureship at St John’s I hold the position of Assistant Curator of Classical Archaeology at the Ashmolean Museum.

Teaching

At St John’s I teach most Classical Archaeology papers, which explore the material and visual cultures of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Such courses include Greek Art and Archaeology c. 500–300 BC, Art Under the Roman Empire, AD 14–337, Greek Sculpture 600–300 BC, Greek Vases, Hellenistic Art and Archaeology 330–30 BC, and Texts and Contexts. I also provide undergraduate thesis supervision for students in BA Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. Through my joint appointment at the Ashmolean Museum, I frequently incorporate gallery visits and handling sessions into my college teaching, developing students’ skills in the direct, first-hand analysis of ancient images, objects, and monuments.

My research interests gravitate around the use of objects and images to construct and understand ideas of the past, in both ancient and modern contexts. Within archaeology, my primary specialism is the visual-material culture of ancient Greece in the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods (7th–1st centuries BC), and my doctoral dissertation investigates the phenomenon of artistic archaism (the practice of making things that look conspicuously old-fashioned) in Greek art and architecture during the period c. 700-480 BC. Alongside this work, I study the representation of the ancient world in modern academic and public spheres, particularly through the quintessential modern media of photography and cinema. I am also an active field archaeologist, having previously worked at sites in Greece and Turkey, and since 2019 I have been a member of the NYU–UniMi excavations at Selinunte, Sicily, where our international team works to uncover the archaeological remains of this ancient city’s urban sanctuary.

Awards and Distinctions

2022–23 Samuel H. Kress Fellowship in the Art and Architecture of Antiquity, American School of Classical Studies at Athens

2021–22 Bert Hodge Hill Fellowship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens

2019–2026 Classical Archaeology Fellow, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (PhD studentship award)

Recent Publications

2026. “Projecting Roman Britain: Cinema newsreels and national ancestry.” In Remémoration et réinterprétation: des passés antiques à des passés récents. (XIVE–XXE siècle), ed. by C. Gaullier-Bougassas, 139–52. Recherches sur les Réceptions de l'Antiquité (RRA) 15. Turnhout: Brepols.

2026. “Blue blood turned black: Hecuba between image and text.” Omnibus 91: 30–32.

2025. “Illustration, imagination, and the Alan Sorrell archive.” The Ashmolean Magazine 90: 48–50.

2024. “Photocorinthia: The contingency of archaeological photography in the Corinth excavation archives.” In Trends in Archive Archaeology: Current Research on Fieldwork Archival Material and its Implications for the Practice of Archaeology, ed. by J. M. Frey and R. Raja, 53–89. Archive Archaeology 5. Turnhout: Brepols.

2022. “The meaning and function of the horse-head amphora” (with W. Austin). In Hippos: The Horse in Ancient Athens = Ίππος: Το άλογο στην αρχαία Αθήνα, ed. by J. Neils and S. M. Dunn, 69–72. Athens: ASCSA.

2022. “Athenian archers on horseback” (with W. Austin). In Hippos: The Horse in Ancient Athens = Ίππος: Το άλογο στην αρχαία Αθήνα, ed. by J. Neils and S. M. Dunn, 185–92. Athens: ASCSA.