Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships

Latest updates: July 2021, to incorporate information about changes to the MSCA under the new ‘Horizon Europe’ programme.

September 2021: the slides from my talk about MSCA fellowships at the Institute of Classical Studies Professional Development Workshop are available here.

Scientist Marie Skłodowska-Curie

As I said in my previous post, I’m just starting a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, and I wanted to say more here about what these fellowships actually are and what the process for applying for them is like. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are part of the European Union’s Horizon research funding scheme; the specific type of fellowship I have, an MSC Individual European Fellowship, provides funding for 1-2 years for postdoctoral researchers who are moving to or within Europe (for information on other kinds of MSC fellowships, see here: e.g. there are fellowships to support spending time outside of Europe or returning from a career break).

Comfort Classics: Anna P. Judson

I did an interview in Cora Beth Knowles’ “Comfort Classics” series about one of my favourite Linear B tablets – featuring labyrinths, doodling, and cake-baking! You can read it here:

Classical Studies Support

The world is in a state of upheaval at the moment, and we’re all looking for things to make us feel less anxious. Maybe Classics can help.

Today’s interview is with Anna P. Judson

Is there a source from the ancient world that you find yourself coming back to when you want to feel better?

This Linear B clay tablet from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos, with a drawing of a labyrinth on the back.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAMA_Tablette_1287.jpg. CC-BY 3.0, credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Marsyas

When did you first come across this tablet?

I must have first seen a picture of it sometime during my MPhil degree in 2011-12, when I started learning to read Linear B and spent a lot of time practicing on drawings and photographs of tablets. Later on I was able to see the real thing on a study visit to Greece – it’s on display in the National Archaeological…

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Goodbye Cambridge, γεια σου Αθήνα!

Goodbye Cambridge, hello Athens!

I’ve been a postdoctoral Research Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, for the last four years. As part of this fellowship, I’ve continued the work I began during my PhD, looking at ways to understand more about the remaining ‘undeciphered’ signs of Linear B – the sound-values of fourteen of this writing system’s eighty-seven syllabic signs are still uncertain, nearly 70 years after the script as a whole was deciphered. My monograph based on my thesis, The Undeciphered Signs of Linear B: Interpretation and Scribal Practices, which has just been published with CUP, not only tries to establish as much as is currently possible about the most likely types of sound-value each of these signs may have, but also uses them to explore wider issues about the Linear B writing system’s creation from its parent script Linear A and its use by the Mycenaean scribes to write administrative documents. Other publications arising from my PhD include an article called “The mystery of the Mycenaean labyrinth: the value of Linear B pu₂ and related signs”, which looks at one particular sign whose exact sound-value is debated, due largely to its appearance in the word ‘labyrinth’ (da-pu₂-ri-to), and the implications its interpretation has for the relationship between Linear B and Linear A, and a book chapter “Processes of script adaptation and creation in Linear B: the evidence of the “extra” signs“, which explores similar issues to do with the initial creation of Linear B but also investigates the script’s ongoing development as the writers who used it created new signs to fit in with the needs of the administrative records they were writing.

Linear B tablet recording various kinds of livestock