Research Specialization

Greek art and archaeology; ancient ceramics; ancient Athens

Publications

Books

The Athenian Agora XXXIII, Hellenistic Pottery: The Plain Wares (Princeton 2006)
Women in the Athenian Agora (Agora Picture Book 26) (Princeton 2006) (with R. D. Lamberton)
Sardis: The Hellenistic Pottery (Cambridge, MA 2003) (with A. Oliver Jr.)
The Athenian Agora XXIX, Hellenistic Pottery: Athenian and Imported Wheelmade Tableware (Princeton 1997) 
Debris from a Public Dining Room in the Athenian Agora, Hesperia, Supplement 25 (Princeton 1992) (with J. H. Oakley)
The Athenian Agora XXII, Hellenistic Pottery: Athenian and Imported Moldmade Bowls (Princeton 1982)

Articles

"The Introduction of the Moldmade Bowl Revisited: Tracking a Hellenistic Innovation," Hesperia 75 (2006) 357-378

"Four Centuries of Athenian Pottery," in Chronologies of the Black Sea Area in the Period c. 400-100, V. Stolba and L. Hannestad eds. (Aarhus 2004) 11-30

"West Slope in the East," in Céramiques hellénistiques et romaines (Lyon 2002) 97-110.

"Archaeologists on Conservation: How Codes of Archaeological Ethics and Professional Standards Treat Conservation," JAIC40 (2001) 137-146.

"From Greek to Roman in Athenian Ceramics," in The Romanization of Athens, M.C. Hoff and S.I. Rotroff, eds. (Oxford 1997) 97-116.

"Coins and Stratigraphy," in Archaeological Numismatics/Numismatic Archaeology, K.A. Sheedy and C. Papageorgiadou, eds, Oxbow Monograph 75 (Oxford 1997) 8-16

"Athenian West Slope Vase Painting," Hesperia 60 (1991) 59-102

"Silver, Glass, and Clay: Evidence for the Dating of Hellenistic Luxury Tableware," Hesperia 51 (1982) 329-337

"The Parthenon Frieze and the Sacrifice to Athena," AJA 81 (1977) 379-382

Courses

Greek Art and Archaeology

Roman Art and Archaeology

Ancient Sanctuaries

Underwater Archaeology

Ancient Athens

Greek and Roman Pottery

Athenian Vase Painting

Introduction to Greek Literature: Plato’s Apology

Introduction to Greek Literature: Homer

Herodotus

The Greek Orators

Aeschylus

Research Interests

Susan Rotroff is a Classical archaeologist whose research focuses on the use of material culture to throw light on the daily lives of ancient people. Since 1970 she has been associated with the Agora Excavations, in Athens, where archaeologists have been investigating the civic center of the ancient town and the domestic and industrial neighborhoods that surrounded it. Her concentration there has been on the archaeology of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, using primarily ceramic evidence to reconstruct the activities and behavior of ancient Athenians. She has also worked on excavations at Troy and Sardis in Turkey, and at Carthage in North Africa, and has recently completed a study of pottery from the SEEP survey project, in southern Euboia. Planned future work includes ceramic analysis at Sparta, in Greece. As a classicist as well as an archaeologist, she is particularly interested in the combination of written sources and artifacts in the explication of ancient life.