UT Classics

Our own Sean Gurd was featured in COLA's Life and Letters magazine for his outstanding research.

Let the Ancients Play FeaturesLet the Ancients Play By Kaulie Watson March 4, 2026 facebook twitter email The ancient world was like ours: loud. People crowded into city centers, haggling in marketplaces and chiding their children. Armies in bronze armor clashed on battlefields. Traveling performers sang or chanted the w...

Dear all,

I’m excited to share the news that the Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt exhibition is opening this weekend at the Harry Ransom Center and will run from April 11th to August 2nd. As many of you know, the exhibit is co-sponsored by ISAC and the Department of Religious Studies and focuses in part on manuscripts of religious texts, including P52, a fragment of the Gospel of John widely considered one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament; a fragment of the Gospel of Mary; a third-century fragment of the Odyssey; and an early copy of Greek Deuteronomy. The exhibition is a collaboration with the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, and grows out of Dr. Geoff Smith’s annual summer papyrology seminars with graduate students from RS, Classics, and MES. Dr. Smith and Dr. Katherine Taronas have co-organized this exhibition and co-authored the catalogue with Dr. Aaron Pratt of the HRC and Dr. Jeremy Penner of the Rylands Library. RS grads Rikki Liu and Jordan Swanson also contributed to the analysis and write-up of one of the objects on display.

There are still tickets available (free of cost) for a panel discussion with the four organizers this Thursday 4/9 evening, and the panel will also be live-streamed on YouTube here.