MEET THE FAMILY
Selected list
Currently the growing Lego Classicists Family consists of over 100 figures including Prof. Dame Mary Beard (Cambridge University and TV broadcaster), Stephen Fry (actor, TV broadcaster and author), Prof. Massimo Osanna (Director General of Museums, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Italy), Prof. Dimitrios Pandermelis (Director, Acropolis Museum), Joanna Lumley (actor and TV broadcaster), Barack Obama (44th President of the United States of America), Dr. Kara Cooney (Egyptologist and TV broadcaster), Prof. John Bennet (Director, British School at Athens), Raksha Dave (archaeologist and TV broadcaster) and Bettany Hughes (author and TV broadcaster).
Members of the LC Family whose real selves work at the British Museum.
Front: Lego Dr. Hartwig Fischer, Director and Prof. Dame Mary Beard, Board of Trustees. Middle from left: Lego Dr. Irving Finkel and Lego Pippa Pearce. Back: Lego Dr. Peter Higgs, Lego Dr. James Fraser, Lego Dr. Duygu Camurcuoglu, Lego Dr. Sam Moorhead and Lego Dr Thomas Kiely.
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg is an American classicist and the author of Not All Dead White Men (2018, Harvard University Press), an examination of sexist and racist appropriation of classics driven by the internet and social media.
Zuckerberg was the founder and editor-in-chief of the online journal Eidolon, which published articles about classics approached in a contemporary way.
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg was inducted into the LC Family in 2019 and in 2021 she becomes the Lego Classicist of the Year for her persistent commitment to making the study of the classics relevant, vibrant, inclusive and important in understanding the modern world.
Prof. Massimo Osanna
Prof. Massimo Osanna is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Napoli and Director General of Museums at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Italy.
He was inducted into the LC Family by request of the University of Sydney Museums while he was the Director General of the Pompeii sites and his minifigure self was presented to him in person at Pompeii by University of Sydney academics Dr. Estelle Lazer and A/Prof. Kathryn Welch.
Prof. Massimo Osanna was inducted into the LC Family in 2017.
Prof. Dame Mary Beard
Prof. Beard is a Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Newnham College, author, TV broadcaster and a Trustee of the British Museum.
She is a well-known advocate of the relevance of classics and she makes classics more accessible to a wider audience through her documentaries like Meet the Romans with Mary Beard and her Times Literary Supplement blog, A Don’s Life.
She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to the study of classical civilisations.
Prof. Mary Beard was inducted into the LC Family in 2017.
Prof. John Bennet
Prof. John Bennet is the Director of the British School at Athens and an archaeologist and classicist.
He specialises in the archaeology of complex societies of the Bronze Age Aegean (Minoan and Mycenaean cultures) and their early writing and administrative systems (Linear B). Prof. Bennet is also jointly responsible with “The Lego Classicist” for the LC Family motto, “To Do History is to Play”.
Prof. John Bennet was inducted into the LC Family 2017 and in 2020, Prof. Bennet was awarded the Lego Classicists of the Year Award for his inclusive approach to the ancient world and his support of the LC Family.
Dr. Duygu Camurcuoglou
Dr. Duygu Camurcuoglu is a Conservator who works in the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum and has worked on several archaeological excavations in Turkey and the UK as an archaeologist and a conservator.
Recently, she worked on preparing rare antiquities for the British Museum block-buster exhibition Troy.
Dr. Duygu Camurcuoglu was inducted into the LC Family in 2018. She is also the Europe Ambassador for the LC Family because of her enthusiasm for serious play within the museum work environment.
Prof. Michael Scott
Prof. Michael Scott is an author, TV broadcaster and Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick, UK. He is also President of the Lytham St Annes Classical Association, the UK’s largest branch of the Classical Association.
Prof. Scott works to bring the ancient world to a wider audience and is known for his public engagement and outreach work.
His broadcasting work includes the BBC documentaries Ancient Greece: The Greatest Show on Earth about the ancient origins of theatre and film, Who Were the Greeks? and Delphi: Bellybutton of the Ancient World.
Prof. Michael Scott was inducted into the LC Family in 2019.
Alessandra Randazzo
Alessandra Randazzo is a journalist and ancient historian who specializes in the communication of archaeology, the classical world and social media, particularly focusing on the archaeological site of Pompeii.
Currently, Randazzo is the project manager for the online journal ClassiCult.
She recently interviewed British actor and author Stephen Fry on the occasion of his becoming the 100th member of the LC Family and the publication of his most recent book, Troy.
Alessandra Randazzo was inducted into the LC Family in 2020.
Constantinos Vasiliadis
Constantinos Vasiliadis is Senior Conservator of Antiquities at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, which holds many of the most important antiquities in the world.
In 2014, Vasiliadis led the team that restored the famous Caryatids, stone columns in the shape of young women, from the Erechtheion temple on the Acropolis.
Constantinos Vasiliadis was inducted into the LC Family in 2019. In 2019 he was appointed Lego Classicist Ambassador for the Ancient Greek World for his deep understanding of the ancient artefacts of the Acropolis that he works with physically.
Dr. Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta
Dr. Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta is a classicist with a PhD in classical languages and she has been the resident Historian at Ubisoft Quebec since 2016 where her expertise has informed the classics-themed video games Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018) and Immortals Fenyx Rising (2020).
Dr. Stephanie Ruatta was inducted into the LC Family in 2019. Dr. Ruatta was awarded the Lego Classicist of the Year Award in 2019 for her exceptional ability to bring historical and cultural accuracy and understanding to contemporary culture through the technology of video gaming.
Dr. Giacomo Pardini
Dr. Giacomo Pardini is an ancient coin specialist who is Research Fellow in Ancient Numismatics in the Department of Cultural Heritage Science at the University of Salerno, Italy (Università degli Studi di Salerno).
He is particularly interested in finding out about how coins found at archaeological excavations help us understand how ancient civilizations worked and lived, and how they traded and circulated money.
Dr. Giacomo Pardini was inducted into the LC Family in 2020.
Rhianna Patrick
Rhianna Patrick is an Australian Torres Strait Islander radio and TV broadcaster.
She was inducted into the Lego Classicists Family for her work presenting Can You Dig It, an ABC Radio program also featuring Sydney University archaeologist Dr. Craig Barker, focused on interesting and unusual stories about archaeology for a general audience.
In 2020 Rhianna Patrick interviewed the Lego Classicist on ABC Radio about the LC Family and my artistic process.
Rhianna Patrick was inducted into the LC Family in 2019.
Dr. Irving Finkel
Dr. Irving Finkel specialises in ancient Assyria and is Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum.
He is also a specialist in the history of board games and he worked out the rules of the ancient board game, the Royal Game of Ur by translating an ancient clay inscription in the British Museum.
In 2014, a documentary, Secrets of Noah's Ark, was made about building and launching a real-life ark, based on his work deciphering an ancient cuneiform tablet that tells the story of a flood and gives the dimensions of an ark-like boat.
Dr. Irving Finkel was inducted into the LC Family in 2018.
Prof. Zahra Newby
Prof. Zahra Newby is Head of the Classics and Ancient History Department at the University of Warwick, UK, where they are very committed to their outreach programme that brings the ancient world to a wide audience.
In scholarship, she is especially known for her work on the influence of Greece on aspects of Roman culture including athletics and painting.
Prof. Newby was inducted into the LC Family in 2019.
Dr. Timothy Potts
Dr. Timothy Potts is the Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, USA. He is an archaeologist and art historian who trained at the University of Sydney and the University of Oxford.
The J. Paul Getty Museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of antiquities and has an extensive conservation program.
Dr. Timothy Potts was inducted into the LC Family in 2018.
Dr. Cora Beth Knowles
Dr. Cora Beth Knowles is a classics Associate Lecturer at The Open University, UK.
She has a strong personal commitment to making the classics accessible to everyone. She is the author of the Classics Support website, which provides information about the classics, especially Rome, and is creating a hub for students and researchers to connect and share information.
Dr. Cora Beth Knowles was inducted into the LC Family in 2019.