University honours ancient history expert

A world-leading ancient history expert has received an honorary degree from the University of Reading.

Roger Bagnall, the first director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters in a ceremony on Wednesday 17 July.

Bagnall is a papyrologist, which means that his research is based on deciphering tiny fragments of documents written thousands of years ago. When someone finds a piece of broken pottery from the Roman empire, with ancient writing on it, Bagnall is the person who can decipher that writing.

Bagnall spent 33 years at Columbia University in New York, where he was head of the Classics department three times. His career includes both teaching and research and he has produced more than 50 books and edited volumes, and about 300 articles and chapters.

Bagnall has received many honours from institutions all over the world, including: the Sorbonne University in Paris, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, the University of California at Berkeley, Cambridge University, the British Academy, the Roman Society, the German Archaeological Institute, and the American Philosophical Society, to name a few.

Professor Eleanor Dickey, from the University’s Classics Department, said: “Roger Bagnall is one of the most impressive scholars alive today. It’s not only that he can read ancient handwriting, understand the long-forgotten words, and make sense of what the writer was saying. For Bagnall, each fragment of ancient writing is like a piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle. He can figure out where the piece belongs, and use it to build up a rich picture that provides an insight into life in the ancient world.

“He is also a superb teacher who has spent countless hours helping students at all stages understand difficult concepts. His extraordinary ability to explain the basics clearly and simply one minute and advance the frontiers of knowledge the next epitomises what all academics aspire to do, but very few do it as well as he does.”