Dr. Jane Draycott

Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist, and the author of Cleopatra’s Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen and Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome. She was awarded a BA (Hons) in Archaeology and Ancient History and an MA in Ancient History from Cardiff University, an MSc in Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology from Cranfield University, and a PhD in Classics from the University of Nottingham. She investigates science, technology, and medicine in the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the history and archaeology of medicine; impairment, disability, and prostheses; and botany and horticulture. Recently, she has begun exploring the use (and abuse) of history and archaeology in video games, particularly those set in classical antiquity. She has also long had a special interest in Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Roman client kingdom of Mauretania and is currently co-director of the University of Glasgow’s Games and Gaming Lab. Her academic publications include the monographs Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome (2023), Roman Domestic Medical Practice in Central Italy from the Middle Republic to the Early Empire (2019), and Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt (2012), and the edited volumes Women in Classical Video Games (2022, co-edited with Kate Cook), Women in Historical and Archaeological Video Games (2022), Prostheses in Antiquity (2019) and Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present and Future (2017, co-edited with Emma-Jayne Graham). She lives in Glasgow with a tyrannical Norwegian Forest Cat named Magnus, and is currently renovating a dilapidated Victorian house. You can find her on Twitter as @JLDraycott and Instagram as jane.draycott.