UT Shield

Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory

The University of Texas at Austin
  • About PASP
  • PASP Archives and Finding Aids
  • People of PASP
  • Publications

November 11, 2019, Filed Under: Visit Reports

Visit Report by Susan Lupack

Imagine how excited I was to return to the Classics Department of the University of Texas at Austin, and more specifically, to the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) – the place where I had spent so many happy, albeit generally somewhat stressful, years working toward my doctoral degree (which I received in 2002). Thanks to the support awarded to me as part of a competitive grant from my current institution, Macquarie University, where I am happily ensconced in its research-rich and remarkably collegial Ancient History Department, I was able to spend a week (13-20 September) delving into the resources that attract so many international visitors to PASP. I am working on a book entitled Mycenaean Religion: The Creation and Expression of a Society’s Ideology, and it seemed like a good week of solid work in PASP would benefit my project immensely.  Of course, having that time to consult with Tom Palaima, the co-director of my thesis (with Cynthia Shelmerdine) and now my long-time mentor and friend, was really the greatest draw, and, as I had anticipated, the time spent with Tom was the highlight of my trip.

As I had arrived on a weekend, we had to start off with a stop in The Little Longhorn Saloon where we got to listen to some of that classic honky tonk music that just can’t be found outside of Texas. I was tempted to try the two-step!  But the better idea was to get over to Kerbey Lane for some of those gingerbread pancakes that I had been dreaming of for years. It was Joann Gulizio and her partner Ralph who got me there, and pretty much everywhere else that I went for the rest of the trip. I want to say here how amazing they both are, and what fun we had choosing where we would eat every night. But of course there was lots of work that got done as well – my discussions with Joann on Mycenaean religion were extremely productive – I’m already doing some research for an article that Joann and I will be working on together.

PASP meets for drinks at Little Longhorn Saloon. 

It was also a great pleasure for me to teach in the Linear B class that Tom and Joann are co-teaching. For one of the seminars Tom invited me to present my latest ideas on the possibility that the wanax who appears in the Fr tablets receiving offerings of perfumed oil is actually an ancestral wanax whose worship had been incorporated into Late Helladic Mycenaean religion. It was phenomenal to see so many students interested in learning Linear B and working in PASP.

Not surprisingly, I found that the department (like Austin), had changed quite a bit!  But of course there were still several familiar faces, including Paula Perlman, Lesley Dean-Jones, Steve White, and Andrew Riggsby. I was fortunate enough to have lengthy talks about my research with all of them. I was also glad of the chance to talk with Garrett Bruner, the archivist extraordinaire who is helping to organize and conserve the valuable resources that PASP houses. And I want to thank Khoa Tran and Vanessa Noya for welcoming me and helping me with all the things that one finds one doesn’t know how to do in a new place!

After my time in Austin, I took a trip down to San Antonio, where I had been invited by Corinne Pache and fellow PASPian Nicolle Hirschfeld to teach in Corinne’s Homer seminar and to give a talk that was co-hosted by Trinity University and the Archaeological Institute of America’s San Antonio chapter. For an audience of around one hundred interested people, I presented the basics of Linear B studies, and then, using that as a foundation, I discussed the more specific ideas I have concerning the Mycenaean worship of an ancestral wanax. The level of engagement of this predominantly non-academic audience was reflected in the large number and high quality of their questions.  It was a great night. And it was made even greater by the fact that Corinne and I were able to celebrate the imminent appearance (November 2019!) of the volume that we have been working on (with Bob Lamberton and Casey Due) for nearly four years – the new Cambridge Guide to Homer. This volume was Corinne’s brainchild, and she invited me to serve as the associate editor for the section “The Homeric World.” It will be quite gratifying to see this published, particularly as I was able to involve Tom Palaima and two other PASPians, Dimitri Nakassis and Stephie Nikoloudis, as writers of a few of its essays.

After this trip, which was both so productive and so full of good feeling, I sincerely hope to be able to return before too much time has passed.

Updated on November 11, 2019 by Garrett R. Bruner. garrettbruner@utexas.edu
Tweets by @pasparchives

PASP Visit Reports

  • Visit Report by Catherine Pratt, Autumn 2022
  • Tom Palaima in Copenhagen, September 2022
  • Visit Report by Susan Lupack
  • Visit Report by Helena Tomas
  • Report on Visit – Regina Dürig and Christian Müller
  • Report on Visit – Flavia Carraro
  • Manolis Stavrakakis and the Treasures of PASP
  • Report on Visit – Dimitri Nakassis
  • Report on Visit – Ruth Palmer
  • Report on Visit – Vassilis Petrakis
  • Report on Visit – Jerry Eisenberg
  • Report on Visit – Jörg Weilhartner
  • Report on Visit – Carlos Varias Garcia
  • Report on Visit – Alison Fell
  • Report on Visit – José Luis García Ramón
  • Report on the Activities at PASP – José Melena

PASP Archives Updates

  • Personal and PASPian Perspectives on ‘Mysteries Revisited’ : Alice Kober, John Franklin Daniel, Michael Ventris and Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. as Founders of Scientific Research on Aegean and Cypriote Scripts
  • Linear B Down Under: An Exhibit on Decipherment at Macquarie University, Sydney
  • Bob Dylan and the Next Generations
  • Dylanology I, II, III
  • Brent Davis (University of Melbourne): Syllabotactic Analysis of Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic
  • MASt@CHS Spring Seminar, April 16, 2021: Summaries and Discussion
  • Winter 2021 MASt@CHS report with contributors Michele Mitrovich & Jared Petroll
  • Islands of the Blessed
  • All Bennett Correspondence Now Online – A Report
  • Journey to Alice – Exploring the blanks of Alice Kober’s life within creative writing
  • The MASt@CHS project
  • This is Retaliation, Not Justice: Speaking Out After 9-11-2001 by Tom Palaima
  • “Ciphers”, a new play by Bernadine Corrigan about Michael Ventris and Alice Kober, with introduction and suggested background readings by Tom Palaima and an excerpt chosen by the playwright
  • A Love Letter to Cyprus and Its Coffee by Cassie Donnelly
  • Commemorating John Chadwick’s 100th Birthday by Tom Palaima
  • PASP Semester in Reflection, Spring 2020
  • PASP Publications Page Update
  • Tom Palaima – Emmett Bennett Correspondence Online
  • Updates to PASP Publications Index
  • Stanley Lombardo visits PASP and University of Texas
  • Michele Mitrovich Awarded AHEPA Scholarship
  • On the Trail of Cypro-Minoan by Cassandra Donnelly
  • PASP featured in SAA Archival Outlook May/June 2019
  • Summer Travels Recap. 2019.
  • Clay Time: A Workshop in Late Bronze Age Scripts. By Cassandra Donnelly
  • Archivist: A Connective Branch in the PASP Ecosystem by Sarah Buchanan
  • A Semester in Review by Zoé Thomas
  • The Phaistos Disk: A New Way of Viewing the Language behind the Script
  • “Beauty in clay: Aesthetics and script in Mycenaean Greece” by Dimitri Nakassis
  • CREWS Fellowship Awarded to PASP Researcher and Classics PhD Candidate Cassandra Donnelly
  • William C. Brice – Scripta Minoa III Correspondence Now Online
  • Aegean Scholarship at UT accessible at Texas ScholarWorks by Kevin S. Lee
  • Paintings and Poetry in Linear B – The Nikos Samartzidis Collection
  • William C. Brice Collection material online
  • Visit Report by Regina Dürig and Christian Müller
  • “Dear Bennett, Dear Miss Kober” by Kevin Lee
  • Emmett L. Bennett – Correspondence Online

UT Home | Emergency Information | Site Policies | Web Accessibility | Web Privacy | Adobe Reader

© The University of Texas at Austin 2023

  • UT Austin
  • UT Blogs
  • Log in
  • Imaging the tablets from Pylos
  • Changes in PASP