Profile

Ellen, educated in University College London, has wide interests in artefact studies as well as the late and post-Roman transition in the West; she is also interested in late Roman dress and Roman and late antique art.

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Research

Design for living: artefact function and everyday social practice in the Roman world

The project explores the relationship between the design and actual use of objects, bringing in insights from design theory, and investigating how artefact function relates both to behaviour and to wider cultural norms. Everyday artefacts have been neglected in research compared to more obviously symbolic items, but are essential to our understanding of Roman living, both in a practical sense, as functional artefacts, and also in the construction and performance of culturally specific behaviour. Ellen’s first case study for the project looks at Roman spoons.

Visualisation of the Late Antique City

Ellen is co-supervising a team of doctoral research students on this Leverhulme funded joint project, led by Dr Luke Lavan. She will also be contributing to related research publications. The project aims to establish an academic basis for the reconstruction of everyday life in late antiquity. Please see the following web site for more details: http://visualisinglateantiquity.wordpress.com/

Artefacts in the 4th-5th century transition period

This research project investigates Roman bracelets which have been cut down into rings of a smaller diameter, probably into finger-rings and child-sized bracelets, using data from both the Portable Antiquities Scheme and from excavated sites. While there are a few examples of early Roman material being treated in this way, it seems mainly to be a phenomenon associated with the late-post Roman transition period in Britain (late fourth to early fifth century). Most of the re-used bracelets are very late Roman types, and dates of deposition for items made from re-used bracelets show a bias towards late-post Roman contexts. This raises interesting questions about the curation and continuing use of Roman material culture in the fifth century. The research is forthcoming as an article in the journal ‘Britannia’.

Roman decoration in the social context

Ellen has also completed a major project on decoration in Roman art, with a particular focus on the social context and the function of decoration in Roman society. Scholars have in the past studied the symbolism and style of decorative art, but its effect on the viewer is just as important. Roman mosaics, for example, are full of visual effects and optical illusions. Are these deliberate? What impact would they have on a Roman viewer? How did people in the Roman period react to the decoration they encountered as part of their daily lives, and what uses did it have? Ellen explores these and other questions in a close study of interior décor and other decorated objects including dress accessories, vessels, and mosaics.

Research Supervision

Ellen is able to supervise research postgraduates in the following areas and welcomes further enquiries from interested applicants: Roman artefacts (especially in relation to dress), the Late Roman West, and Roman and Late Antique Art.

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Publications

Books

2009 Style and Function in Roman Decoration, Ashgate, Aldershot. Link

2003 Roman Dress Accessories, Shire Books, Princes Risborough.

2000 Regionality in Dress Accessories in the Late Roman West, Monographies Instrumentum 11, Editions Monique Mergoil, Montagnac.

2000 The End of the Western Roman Empire: an archaeological investigation, Tempus, Stroud.

Edited Volumes

2007 L. Lavan, E. Swift & T. Putzeys (eds) Objects in Context, Objects in Use: material spatiality in Late Antiquity, Brill, Leiden/Boston.

2003 E.Swift, G. Carr & J. Weekes eds. TRAC 2002: Proceedings of the 12th annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, University of Kent at Canterbury 5-6 April 2002, Oxbow Books, Oxford.

2002 E. Swift, M. Carruthers, C. Van Driel Murray, A. Gardner, J. Lucas & L. Revell eds.TRAC 2001: Proceedings of the 11th annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, University of Glasgow 29-31 March 2001, Oxbow Books, Oxford.

Papers and chapters in books

2012 Swift, E. ‘The archaeology of adornment and the toilet in Roman Britain and Gaul’, 47-57 in M. Harlow (ed.) Dress and Identity, British Archaeological Reports International Series S2356, Archaeopress, Oxford.

2011 Swift, E. ‘Personal Ornament and Toilet Articles’, 194-218 in L. Allason-Jones (ed.) Roman Artefacts in Britain, their purpose and use, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

2010 Swift, E. Identifying migrant communities: a contextual analysis of grave assemblages from continental late Roman cemeteries, in Britannia 41, 237-282.

2010 Swift, E. & Alwis, A. ‘The role of late antique art in early Christian worship: a reconsideration of the iconography of the starry sky in the so-called ‘Mausoleum’ of Galla Placidia, Ravenna' in Papers of the British School at Rome 78, 193-217 and 352-4.

2007 ‘Decorated Vessels: the function of decoration in Late Antiquity’, 385-412 in
L. Lavan, E. Swift & T. Putzeys (eds) Objects in Context, Objects in Use: material spatiality in Late Antiquity, Brill, Leiden/Boston.

2007 (with L.Lavan and T. Putzeys) ‘Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity: Sources, Approaches, and Field Methods’, 1-44 in L. Lavan, E. Swift & T. Putzeys (eds) Objects in Context, Objects in Use: material spatiality in Late Antiquity, Brill, Leiden/Boston.

2007 ‘Small objects, small questions? Perceptions of finds research in the academic community’ 18-28, in R. Hingley & S. Willis (eds.) Roman Finds: Context and Theory, Oxbow, Oxford.

2006 ‘Constructing Roman Identities in late Antiquity: material culture on the western frontier’, 97-111 in Bowden, Gutteridge and Machado (eds.) Late Antique Archaeology 3, Social and political life in late antiquity. Brill, Leiden.

2004 ‘Dress Accessories, culture and identity in the late Roman period’, 217-222 in Antiquité Tardive 12.

2004 ‘Decorated Material Culture and Social Practice in the Roman World’ (abstract) 190 in Alexeev, Belaiev, & Bondarenko (eds.) Third International Conference: Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.

2003 ‘Late Roman bead necklaces and bracelets’, 336-349 in Journal of Roman Archaeology 16.

2000 ‘Regional variation in personal ornaments in the late Roman West’, in I. Bertrand (ed.) Acualité de la recherche sur le mobilier romain non céramique, Actes du colloque de Chauvigny des 23 et 24 Octobre 1998, Poitiers (Mémoires de l'Association des Publications Chauvinoises 18).

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Awards

March 2012
£1,300 British Academy Small Grant from the Chittick Fund for the project ‘Design for living: artefact function and everyday social practice in the Roman World’

December 2010
£180,000 from the Leverhulme Trust for project ‘Visualising the Late Antique City’ (PI Luke Lavan)

May 2007
£4,000 from the Cotton Foundation for publication of the book Style and Function in Roman Decoration, Ashgate, Aldershot.

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Service

Secretary to the Roman Research Trust, 2011-

Meetings secretary Roman Finds Group 2002-7, Committee member 2002-

Chair, TRAC Standing Committee 2001-2003

Member, Roman Archaeology Committee, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 2006-

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London

Ellen currently directs the part-time Certificate, Diploma and Degree in Archaeological Studies.

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Training

Ellen teaches a number of modules on various topics. These include Artefact Studies, the Archaeology of Belief, Cult and Ritual, the Archaeology of Death, and the Late and post-Roman era in the West.

She is keen to supervise students with an interest in artefact studies, particularly Roman jewellery and dress accessories, as well as on themes related to the Late and post-Roman transition in the West.

In the past she has supervised a variety of topics from Mithraism and Urbanism to Early Roman burials and Roman seal boxes.

Current PhD Students include: Jo Stoner and Faith Morgan

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