As an archaeologist and cultural historian, my research explores the question of how different groups in antiquity experienced and interacted with the materiality of religious landscapes. My dissertation offers the first comparative study of the archaeology and cultural history of Panhellenic sanctuaries in Greece during Late Antiquity. The aim of this project is to re-evaluate the traditional view of Panhellenic sanctuaries in Late Antiquity, which casts these sites as enclaves of straggling paganism that were subsequently destroyed or appropriated by Christians. Instead, I argue that a re-examination of the evidence allows us to better understand the religious practices and the broader cultural activities at sanctuaries in Late Antiquity. My analysis of the archaeological evidence from three case study sites—Delphi, Olympia, and Epidaurus—reveals distinct patterns both in continuity of cultural practices and in the selective preservation or creative restoration of monuments at these sites. These patterns, in conjunction with textual sources, provide new and substantial evidence that Panhellenic sanctuaries continue to function in Late Antiquity, as they did throughout the imperial period, as sites where both pagan and Christian visitors could participate in cultural traditions and express a shared connection to the past. This new approach to Panhellenic sanctuaries in Late Antiquity fundamentally revises our understanding of this final chapter in the long history of Panhellenic sanctuaries.

        A secondary focus of my research is on the study of ancient graffiti. I use a contextual and spatial approach to graffiti to illuminate how space was used or perceived in antiquity. In my recent contribution to the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, I combine my interests in the archaeology and history of religion in Late Antiquity with contextual approaches to graffiti as cultural artifacts.

Publications:

Judge-Mulhall, Julia. “A New Interpretation of a Graffito from the Late Antique Prison at Corinth (=IG IV2 3, 1271).” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 217 (2021) 89–94.

“Ephebeion” in Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (forthcoming).