Ralph Jackson

Curator of Romano-British Collections

Roman Britain

Department: Prehistory and Europe

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8580
Email: rjackson @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Ralph Jackson is Curator of the Romano-British collections and Head of Roman Britain and Medieval Europe. He has directed excavations on Roman military and civilian sites in Britain and is currently researching a newly-discovered Romano-British temple treasure and co-ordinating fieldwork at the site.

He specializes in Roman metalwork and the archaeology of ancient medicine and is just completing a book on objects of body care in Roman Britain. His main medical interests are in ancient surgery, surgical practitioners and their instrumentation.

Major publication projects in progress include books on Roman Britain and on Greek and Roman surgery, a catalogue of the British Museum’s medical collections and, with Dr. Jacopo Ortalli, the publication of the remarkable medical assemblage from the ‘House of the Surgeon’ at Rimini.

Current British Museum projects

The ‘near Baldock’ hoard of Roman temple treasure and its archaeological context

Cosmetic sets: an illustrated catalogue and discussion of a type unique to late Iron Age and Roman Britain

Previous British Museum projects

Lead curator for the exhibition ‘Gladiators and Caesars: the Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome’

External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Member of Council, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Trustee of the Roman Research Trust

Member of Faculty of Archaeology, History & Letters, British School at Rome

External Moderator for Birkbeck College, Faculty of Continuing Education

Advisory Board member for the journal Medicina nei Secoli

Publications

Most recent publications

R. Jackson, ‘Imagining health-care in Roman London’ in J. Clark, J. Cotton, J. Hall, R. Sherris and H.  Swain (eds.) Londinium and beyond: essays for Harvey Sheldon CBA Research Report (forthcoming)

R. Jackson, ‘The Senuna treasure and shrine at Ashwell (Hertfordshire)’ in A. King and R. Häussler (eds.) Continuity and Innovation in the Roman West, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series (forthcoming)

R. Jackson, ‘Colchester, cosmetic sets and context’ in P. Ottaway (ed.) A victory celebration: papers on the archaeology of Colchester and late Iron Age – Roman Britain presented to Philip Crummy (Colchester, 2006).

R. Jackson, ‘Roman bound captives: symbols of slavery?’, in N. Crummy (ed.) Image,  Craft and the Classical World (Monographies Instrumentum 29, Éditions Monique Mergoil, Montagnac, 2005), pp. 143-56

R. Jackson, ‘Circumcision, de-circumcision and self-image: Celsus’s ‘operations on the penis’’, in A. Hopkins and M. Wyke (eds.) Roman Bodies: Antiquity to the eighteenth century (British School at Rome, London, 2005), pp. 23-32