Dr Beatrice Pestarino PhD, MA, BA

Personal Statement

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the ACE department at the University of Liverpool. I obtained a BA and an MA in Classical Philology and Ancient History from the University of Pisa, and a PhD in Ancient Greek History from UCL. I am interested in the politico-administrative and economic systems of the Mediterranean city-states during the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods with a major focus on Cyprus, and in ancient mobility investigated through travellers’ graffiti and marks, especially in desert remote landscapes.

My first book 'Kypriōn Politeia, the political and administrative systems of the Classical Cypriot city-kingdoms' (Brill 2022) - which won the CRABA Award 2023, and a book prize from the Instituto Italiano per la Storia Antica (Rome) - investigates the political and administrative systems of the Classical Cypriot city-states focusing on the roles of magistracies and assemblies beyond Cypriot kings. My Leverhulme project, ‘Rethinking regionalism and power in Hellenistic Cyprus’, analyses long term developments of Archaic and Classical Cypriot institutions in the Hellenistic period, such as the role played by local elites in the administrations of cities and continuity in local administrative practices. It also considers phenomena of local resistance to the imposition of Ptolemaic imperial rule, extending its focus beyond Cyprus. As postdoctoral fellow (2022-2024) at The Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (University of Haifa), I studied the connections between Cyprus and the Levant in the Archaic period (8th-6th cent. BC). Since 2022, I am member of the Mitzpe Shivta Archaeological Project - PI Dr. Sina Lehnig - as a Greek epigraphist, where I edit and translate Greek graffiti found on the site, a Byzantine monastery in the Negev desert (6th cent. AD). I have been Fellow in Hellenic studies (2022-2023) at the Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS, Harvard University), Young Researcher fellow at the Fondation Hardt (2024), and visiting fellow of the project ‘Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems’ (PI Pippa Steele) at the University of Cambridge (2022). I have regularly thought Classics in the ‘London Summer School in Classics’, organised by UCL (Department of Greek and Latin), Ancient Greek and Ancient Near-East History, and I have delivered classes of Ancient Greek language at Royal Holloway University of London as a visiting tutor.

Prizes or Honours

• CRABA Junior Researcher Award (The Cyprus Review, 2023)
• Book prize (Instituto Italiano per la Storia Antica, 2023)

Funded Fellowships