Staff profile

Edmund Thomas is Associate Professor in Ancient Visual and Material Culture and Associate Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University. His main research interests are Roman architecture and its relation to Roman society and culture and the reception of ancient architectural traditions in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

His book Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford University Press) appeared in 2007. He has written articles on the Pantheon and Septizodium in Rome, on Severan architecture and on Roman epigraphy, Roman sarcophagi and architectural aesthetics, and has jointly authored a work on the historical topography of Winchester from the late Iron Age to 1800 for the Historic Towns Atlas series, which was published by OUP in 2017.

He co-edited volumes of papers on the materiality of inscribed texts in Greek and Roman antiquity with Andrej and Ivana Petrovic and on interactions between animals and humans in classical antiquity with Thorsten Fögen. 

Dr Thomas is presently completing a major monograph on the tectonics of the keystone in Greek and Roman antiquity and within the classical tradition, entitled Keystones: dialogues between architecture, philosophy, and politics.

He is interested in the intersection between architecture and philosophy. His collected volume, The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus. Cosmology, Medicine, Music, and Architecture from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (co-edited with Jacomien Prins, Utrecht) will be published by Brill in October 2024 in the series Brill Studies in Intellectual History, vol. 353. He has published on the Sublime in architecture and is presently completing a further paper on this subject. He is also working on a study on the relations between architecture and music in Greek and Republican Roman architecture.

He also works on sustainability in ancient architecture. Since 2022, he has collaborated on the project "Solar Technologies of Antiquity: Ancient and Historical Technologies for Climate Action and Energy Conservation" with colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, as part of the Durham-Notre Dame research partnership, and is preparing a collaborative grant proposal. A conference on this subject will be held at Durham in September 2024. He has published a paper on sustainable practices in the architecture of the Roman provinces and a survey of seasonality in imperial Roman architecture.

He has a particular interest in the Baroque both in and after antiquity. His recently published work in this area includes studies of architectural description in Jean de la Roque's early eighteenth-century description of Baalbek; the reception of the Elder Piny's account of Gaius Curio's revolving theatres in the theatre architecture of Bernini; and the descriptions of palaces in early imperial Latin literature and their relation to "Baroque" architecture. 

Other subjects on which he has worked include the spirally fluted column in antiquity, a project sponsored by the British Academy and the Council for British Research in the Levant, the sanctuary of Tyche at Antioch, and the relations between architecture and inscribed text in antiquity and later periods.

He has spent lengthy periods of research in Rome and elsewhere and has been involved in archaeological excavations at Butrint in Albania. He was Balsdon Fellow at the British School at Rome in 2016 and Margo Tytus Visiting Scholar at the University of Cincinnati in 2022. He is also a qualified archivist and has a special interest in the description and management of architectural drawings.

• Roman Architecture
• Monumentality
• Ancient Aesthetics
• Roman Epigraphy
• Classicism
• Roman Sarcophagi
• Vitruvius
• Light in Architecture
• Spirally fluted columns

Authored book

• Biddle, M., Clayre, B., Keene, D., Morris, F., & Thomas, E. (2017). Historic Towns Atlas: Winchester. The Historic Towns Trust and the Winchester Excavations Committee
• Thomas, E. (2007). Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age. Oxford University Press

Chapter in book

• Thomas, E. (in press). From Text to Building: The Impact of the Timaeus on the Discipline of Architecture in Later Antiquity. In J. Prins, & E. Thomas (Eds.), The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus. Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004705838
• Prins, J., & Thomas, E. (in press). Introduction: From Plato’s Text to the Beginnings of Modern Science: Towards a New Understanding of the Disciplinary Inheritance of Plato’s Timaeus. In J. Prins, & E. Thomas (Eds.), The Legacy of Plato’s Timaeus. Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004705838
• Thomas, E. The Theatres of Gaius Curio and the Evolution of the Baroque. In P. Fane-Saunders (Ed.), Architecture and Text. Cambridge Universuty Press
• Thomas, E. (2023). Green shoots: Architectural transfer and sustainability in the architecture of the Roman provinces. In N. Mugnai (Ed.), Architectures of the Roman World (61-83). Oxbow Books
• Thomas, E. (2021). Seasonally Adaptive Design in Roman Public Architecture and Urban Space. In A. Lichtenberger, & R. Raja (Eds.), The Archaeology of Seasonality (279-302). Brepols Publishers
• Thomas, E. (2020). Movement through Ruins: Re-experiencing Ancient Baalbek with Jean de la Roque. In K. Skelton (Ed.), Early modern spaces in motion : design, experience and rhetoric (163-188). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463725811_ch06
• Thomas, E. (2017). Performance Space. In W. A. Johnson, & D. S. Richter (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the Second Sophistic (181-201). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199837472.013.15
• Thomas, E. (2017). Urban Geographies of Human-Animal Relations in Classical Antiquity. In T. Foegen, & E. Thomas (Eds.), Interactions between animals and humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (339-368). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110545623-014
• Foegen, T., & Thomas, E. (2017). Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Introduction. In T. Foegen, & E. Thomas (Eds.), Interactions between animals and humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (1-18). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110545623-001
• Thomas, E. (2015). Roman Architecture as Art?. In B. Borg (Ed.), A Companion to Roman Art (344-364). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118886205.ch18
• Thomas, E. (2015). The beauties of architecture. In P. Destrée, & P. Murray (Eds.), A companion to ancient aesthetics (274-290). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119009795.ch18
• Thomas, E. (2014). On the Sublime in architecture. In J. Elsner, & M. Meyer (Eds.), Art and rhetoric in Roman culture (37-88). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511732317.004
• Thomas, E. (2013). The Severan Period. In R. Ulrich, & C. Quenemoen (Eds.), A companion to Roman architecture (82-105). Wiley
• Thomas, E. (2013). Translating Roman architecture into Greek regional identities. In P. Schubert (Ed.), Les Grecs héritiers des Romains : huit exposés suivis de discussions : Vandoeuvres - Genève, 27-31 août 2012 (147-202). Fondation Hardt
• Thomas, E. (2013). Introduction: Religious Architecture in the Roman Empire, East and West. In T. Kaizer, A. Leone, E. Thomas, & R. Witcher (Eds.), Cities and gods : religious space in transition (7-8). Peeters Publishers
• Thomas, E. (2011). ‘Houses of the dead’? Columnar sarcophagi as ‘micro-architecture’. In J. Elsner, & J. Huskinson (Eds.), Life, death and representation : some new work on Roman sarcophagi (387-435). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110216783.387
• Thomas, E. (2010). Architecture. In A. Barchiesi, & W. Scheidel (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies (838-858). Oxford University Press
• Thomas, E. (2010). Atrium', 'Palace', 'Portico', 'Forum. In A. Grafton, G. Most, & S. Settis (Eds.), The Harvard Companion to the Classical Tradition. Harvard University Press
• Thomas, E. (2007). Metaphor and identity in Severan architecture: the Septizodium between reality and fantasy. In S. Swain, S. Harrison, & J. Elsner (Eds.), Severan culture (327-367). Cambridge University Press
• Thomas, E. (2004). From the Pantheon of the Gods to the Pantheon of Rome. In R. Wrigley, & M. Craske (Eds.), Pantheons : transformations of a monumental idea (11-34). Ashgate Publishing
• Thomas, E. (1998). AB URBE CONDITA TRI[...]: A new commemoration of the imperial tribunician powers from the imperial vicus (Castelporziano). In M. G. Lauro (Ed.), Castelporziano III: Campagne di scavo e restauro 1987-1991 (137-149). Viella

Conference Paper

• (2013, March). Cities and Gods: Religious Space in Transition. Presented at Cities and Gods: Religious Space in Transition, Durham, England
• Thomas, E. (1994, December). The monumentality of the basilica stoa at Thera and Antoninus Pius. Presented at La ciutat en el món romà: actes XIV Congrés Internacional d'Arqueologia Clàssica = La ciudad en el mundo romano: actas XIV Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Clásica, Tarragona, Spain

Edited book

• Thomas, E., & Prins, J. (in press). J. Prins, & E. Thomas (Eds.). The Legacy of Plato’s Timaeus. Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004705838
• Philosophy, Science and Art. Brill Academic Publishers
• Petrovic, A., Petrovic, I., & Thomas, E. (Eds.). (2019). The Materiality of Text - Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity. Brill Academic Publishers
• Foegen, T., & Thomas, E. (Eds.). (2017). Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110545623

Journal Article

• Thomas, E. (in press). Built space, written space: baroque spatialities between architecture and text in Lucan, Statius, and the palaces of imperial Rome. Antichthon, 58,
• Thomas, E. (2024). Bernini’s Two Theatres and the Trauma of Classical Reception. Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies, 10(1), 131-146
• Thomas, E. (2017). The Cult Statues of the Pantheon. The Journal of Roman Studies, 107, 146-212. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0075435817000314
• Thomas, E. (2013). Chiasmus in Art and Text. Greece and Rome, 60(01), 50-88. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0017383512000265
• Thomas, E. (2012). Water and the display of power in Augustan Rome: the so-called 'Villa Claudia' at Anguillara Sabazia. Water History, 4(1), 57-78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-012-0055-x
• Thomas, E. (2012). "Nero's Tomb" and the Crisis of the Third Century: Roman Sarcophagi as Public and Private Monuments. Res (Cambridge, Mass.), 61/62 : Spring/Autumn 2012(Sarcophagi), 132-151. https://doi.org/10.1086/resvn1ms23647825
• Thomas, E. (1997). The architectural history of the Pantheon in Rome from Agrippa to Septimius Severus via Hadrian
• Thomas, E., & Witschel, C. (1992). Constructing reconstruction: claim and reality of Roman rebuilding inscriptions in the Latin West. Papers of the British School at Rome, 60(1992), 135-177

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Biddle, M., Keene, D., & Thomas, E. (2006). Winchester historic wall map : [around the year 1800]