20th April 2022 - Ancient Feasts at the Resonate Festival

Dr Grigsby led a series of workshops for families including mosaic making, pottery making, a Greek symposium, object handling, and Roman Cookery (below). The Roman Cookery workshop was a particular hit, with recipes including ‘Athenian cabbage’ and ‘melon and garum’ (the Roman sauce made of fish guts and fish blood). The Resonate Festival attracted thousands of visitors on campus with many families especially making it to the Classics offering in the Oculus Building.

Students Rhianna Pike and Jaya Sepion-Earp running the Roman Cookery workshop

Academics from the Dept of Classics and Ancient History created special videos on the theme of feasting which were screened at the event and can be viewed online through this link.

Dr Grigsby also worked together with over 20 local Coventry schools to create a giant mosaic on the theme of feasting, some panels of which were displayed at the event beside our new Faculty of Arts Building.

Some panels of the Coventry ‘giant mosaic’ created by local schools

19th April 2022 Roman Coventry and Music at the Resonate Festival

To kick off the Resonate on-campus Festival, the Dept of Classics and Ancient History here at Warwick hosted an exciting night of ancient Greek and Roman music.

(Above) Barnaby Brown and Stef Conner performing at Warwick Resonate Festival 2022

This event was organised by Dr Francesca Modini with the help of Dr Paul Grigsby of the WCN and built on the research of Dr Modini on ancient Greek music. This was an entertaining and virtuosic show spanning centuries of musical traditions, from the ancient Greek through to the Medieval period. Acclaimed musicians Barnaby Brown and Stef Conner (above) transported a very engaged audience back to the Roman-era and early modern Coventry, with a program which included the kind of melodies which could have been heard across the ancient world and in Roman Britain on instruments like those popular in the Graeco-Roman world.

The event combined concert performances of ancient pieces with interactive sessions, with the audience singing along enthusiastically in ancient Greek and joining in with the earliest Medieval version of the Coventry carol. Dr Grigsby and Dr Modini are also hoping to organise a workshop on ancient music in the coming academic year for our local and regional schools.

28th October 2021 - Go Parks Coventry

Dr Grigsby joined staff from the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum for a Roman themed morning at Longford Park, Coventry. Dr Grigsby brought along some real Roman artefacts from the University's collection to show to local school children and their families.

19th September - Resonate Festival Words and Voices Roadshow

Dr Grigsby was happy to meet the people of Coventry and talk all things Roman at the Words and Voices Roadshow at the Assembly Festival gardens. The event, organised by WCN's Prof Michael Scott, was a fantastic and enjoyable celebration of Coventry's language heritage and diversity.

17th September 2021 - Roman Coventry Project on BBC CWR Radio

The WCN and Dr Grigsby's Roman Coventry project were featured on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio. You can listen to Dr Grigsby and Prof Michael Scott here.

5th October 2019 - Connecting Cultures/City od Culture Open Showcase, FarGo Village, Coventry

On Saturday 5th October 2019 Dr Grigsby took our VR headsets to the Connecting Cultures/City of Culture Open Showcase at the FarGo Village in Coventry, where he spoke to members of the public about the WCN GRP Connecting Cultures Project 'Coventry: A City of Cultures' [see below], a project which brought together academics from both Warwick and Coventry Universities, the Coventry cultural institutions the Herbert Gallery and Museum and Lunt Roman Fort, and local Coventry schools. The headsets were a huge success with the big and small alike.