Ray Laurence

Ray Laurence is the founder of Action Rome in Motion (ARM) and Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University. He has gained extensive experience of writing scripts for animated films about ancient Rome, as well as being a leading academic researcher - whose greatest professional pleasure is teaching.

Ray has made five animated films or cartoons about Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. These films at just a minute in length pack in content and also bring joy to students studying Pompeii, allowing them to imagine the city and the hopes or fears of the population.

Currrent research projects:-

1) Human-Animal Relations in the Development of Transport in Antiquity
The domestication of donkeys and camels reshaped the world of antiquity through the diffusion and development of breeding populations beyond western Asia over the course of the last millennium BCE and the first millennium CE. Understanding this major change in human-animal relations will reveal the role in transportation in the formation of the civilisations of antiquity.

2) Health and Ageing in the Roman World: Challenges and Solutions
This project will increase our understanding of the health challenges faced in the Roman world from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE, and the solutions that were found outside official medical channels and hospitals. It will uncover the challenges faced by sick, disabled and aging citizens and their slaves with the goal of broadening our understanding of health and disability in the modern world.

3) The Cultural History of Mobility and Transport in Antiquity.
Bloomsbury have commissioned a 6 volume set on this topic in their Cultural Histories series. The first book in the series focuses on Moving Bodies, Technology, Power and Speed, Moving Things, Experiencing Mobility and Transport, Regulating Transport and Mobility, and Representing Mobility and Transport.

4) The Epigraphy of Roads and Transportation in Antiquity
Building on my earlier large-scale approaches to inscriptions (Mediterranean Timescapes), this new project seeks to analyse the epigraphy of roads and road building across the Roman Empire. This will involve a re-evaluation of large numbers of inscriptions and geo-referencing of milestones.

5) Understanding Ancient Rome’s Hinterland
In collaboration with colleagues at Groningen University, a number of PhD projects are redefining the role of roads and transport in Rome's hinterland. To date, students are focussed on the provenancing of lava paving utilising portable xray flouresence (pXRF) and building a better understanding of the economics of the supply of paving, as well as modelling least-cost analysis of transport across the hinterlands of Rome.