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Ellen's interests so far have focused on Minoan Crete, specifically the Neopalatial period (c. 1700-1450 BC).  She received her PhD on Minoan Crete from Cambridge in 2004.  She then spent two years based at the British School at Athens with a Leverhulme Study Abroad Studentship, and then two years at the Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin, on an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) Postdoctoral Fellowship.  She came to King's in 2007. In addition to Minoan Crete, she has written articles on Bronze Age Cyprus and the classical tradition in museums of London.

• Minoan (Neopalatial) Crete
• Mediterranean islands in the Bronze Age
• History of classical collections
• The classical world in London’s museums

Ellen’s research focuses on the archaeology of Mediterranean islands, in particular Crete and Cyprus during the Bronze Age. Various themes are explored in this work, such as ritual, experiential approaches to architecture and monumentality. She is also interested in museology, and how the ancient world is displayed and reconstructed in modern London.

Forthcoming ‘Personal identity in Minoan Crete: the body as representation, agent and object’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies

Forthcoming ‘Shaping, collecting and displaying medicine and architecture: a comparison of the Hunterian and Soane museums’, Journal of the History of Collections

2010  'Centrality, "capitals" and prehistoric cultures: a comparative study of Late Bronze Age Crete and Cyprus' Cambridge Classical Journal, 56, pp. 1-46.

2009 ‘Defining and displaying the human body: collectors and Classics during the Enlightenment’, Hermathena 187, 65-97.

2007  'Approaching monuments in the prehistoric built environment: new light on the Minoan palaces' Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 26, 359-394.

Undergraduate

• 4AACAA01 Introduction to Greek art and archaeology
• 5AACAR14 Museums of London
• 5AACAR25 Grand Tour: antiquities in London from the Grand Tour to the present day
• 6AACAR11 Island living in the Eastern Mediterranean: Bronze Age Crete and Cyprus
• 6AACHI17 Greek religion

Postgraduate

• 7AACK814 Ancient Cyprus: colonizations, copper and city-states
• 7AACM810 The art of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean
• 7AACM700 Research training & dissertation in Classical Archaeology

Dr Ellen Adams is interested in supervising research students in:

• Minoan Crete
• Bronze Age and Iron Age Cyprus
• Urban landscapes, architecture and the use of space in ancient Greece
• Museums of London
• The ancient world in modern London

Ellen has appeared twice on Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’ with Melvyn Bragg, discussing the ‘Minoan civilization’ and the ‘Trojan War’.  She has also appeared on Radio 3’s ‘Night Waves’ discussing the decipherment of Linear B.