Susan Walker

Dr Susan Walker FSA is an Honorary Curator of the Ashmolean Museum, where she was Keeper of Antiquities from 2004-2014. She specialises in the art and archaeology of the Roman Empire. Her interests range from Britain to North Africa. In 2023 she was awarded the Kenyon Medal by the British Academy, in recognition of her contribution to classical archaeology: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/prizes-medals/kenyon-medal/

In 2020 Susan Walker was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship to publish letters held in the Vatican Library from the English collector Charles Wilshere (1814-1906) to the distinguished epigraphist and archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822-1804). The letters, first read in 2013, were used to support the narrative of Saints and Salvation. The Wilshere Collection of gold-glass, sarcophagi and inscriptions from Rome and Southern Italy (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2017). Their publication is now well advanced, having been delayed by the pandemic and, more fortunately, by the subsequent unexpected discovery of some 270 relevant papers in Pusey House Library, Oxford, the North Hertfordshire Museum, Hitchin and the British Museum.

Recent publications arising from this project are:

Susan Walker and David Rini, ‘Giovanni Battista de Rossi and the Antiquities Market in Rome’, in (eds.) R. Giuliani, B. Mazzei, D. Mazzoleni, C. Salvetti, Il Secolo di Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822-1894), La cultura artistica dall’Italia all’Europa, Città del Vaticano 2022, pp. 445-469.

S. Walker, ‘Wilshere Avenue: from Hertfordshire to Rome in the later 19th century’ in (eds.) G. J. C. Davis, J. DeLaine, Z. Kamash and C. R. Potts, From the Palatine to Pirro Ligorio: architectural, sculptural and antiquarian studies in memory of Amanda Claridge (1949-2022), Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement no. 111, Providence, Rhode Island, pp. 202-214