About

Sophie Crawford-Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at Rice University and serves as the Director of the Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations Program. Her research centers on Roman and early Italic art and archaeology, utilizing material culture to explore broader historical issues such as colonization processes, cross-cultural interaction, and the transition from Republic to Empire. She has authored a book titled "Religious Architecture and Roman Expansion: Temples, Terracottas, and the Shaping of Identity, 3rd-1st c. BCE," which examines the decorated architectural terracottas of Italic temples and their role in promoting communal identity amidst Roman military expansion. Her current project investigates plant and landscape imagery from the first centuries BCE and CE through an ecocritical lens, situating these images within the broader context of human attitudes toward the natural world. Dr. Crawford-Brown has excavated at archaeological sites in Cyprus and Italy and has contributed to museum projects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She has received several fellowships and awards, including the Rome Prize and the John R. Coleman Fellowship, and lived in Rome for three years before joining Rice University in 2020.

Research topics

• Art
• History
• Computer Science
• Visual arts
• Art history
• Ancient history
• Literature
• Archaeology

Selected publications

• MANTHA ZARMAKOUPI, <b>Shaping Roman Landscape: Ecocritical Approaches to Architecture and Wall Painting in Early Imperial Italy</b> . Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2023. Pp. 207, illus, maps, plans. <scp>isbn</scp> 9781606068489. £62.99/$65.00.

  The Journal of Roman Studies · 2025-08-19

  article1st authorCorresponding

  MANTHA ZARMAKOUPI, Shaping Roman Landscape: Ecocritical Approaches to Architecture and Wall Painting in Early Imperial Italy. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2023. Pp. 207, illus, maps, plans. isbn 9781606068489. £62.99/$65.00.

  PublisherDOI

• Religious Architecture and Roman Expansion

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-02-28

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Religious Architecture and Roman Expansion uses architectural terracottas as a lens for examining the changing landscape of central Italy during the period of Roman military expansion, and for asking how local communities reacted to this new political reality. It emphasizes the role of local networks and exchange in the creation of communal identity, as well as the power of visual expression in the formulation and promotion of local history. Through detailed analyses of temple terracottas, Sophie Crawford-Brown sheds new light on 'Romanization' and colonization processes between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. She investigates the interactions between colonies and indigenous communities, asking why conquerors might visually emulate the conquered, and what this can mean for power relations in colonial situations. Finally, Crawford-Brown explores the role of objects in creating cultural memory and the intensity of our need for collective history-even when that 'history' has been largely invented.

  PublisherDOI

• Ecocriticism on the Wall: Roman Landscapes at the San Antonio Museum of Art

  American Journal of Archaeology · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Art history
  • Archaeology
  PublisherDOI

• Down from the roof: reframing plants in Augustan art

  Journal of Roman Archaeology · 2022 · 24 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Visual arts
  • Art history

  Abstract The Augustan marble “revolution” marked more than the substitution of one building material for another. It changed Rome's color, texture, and light, and visually redefined its sacred architecture. For centuries, temples in and around Rome had been decorated with brightly painted architectural terracottas, which typically featured a swirling array of plants and flowers. Terracotta was the material of sacred tradition, and the vegetal motifs employed on temples evoked a pious Italic past. The lush array of plant life present in Augustan art has not been adequately considered against this background. This paper explores the use of traditional plant motifs in Augustan art and architecture, with an emphasis on viewer response. It considers the so-called Campana reliefs before turning to a more detailed analysis of the Ara Pacis's vegetal panels. These, I argue, consciously evoked ancient temple decoration and drew it into the new visual language of the Augustan Principate.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Frontmatter

  Etruscan and Italic Studies · 2022

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Book Review of Cosa: The Sculpture and Furnishings in Stone and Marble, by Jacquelyn Collins-Clinton

  American Journal of Archaeology · 2021-03-08

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This volume is a long-awaited addition to the growing corpus of publications on this site. Although work at Cosa began in 1948, detailed analyses of materials uncovered during the early excavations have in many cases only recently appeared. Collins-Clinton’s thorough and meticulous volume, however, well rewards the wait. She is the undisputed expert on Cosa’s sculpture, which constituted the topic of her 1970 doctoral dissertation (Collins, “The Marble Sculptures from Cosa,” Columbia University) as well as a series of subsequent articles.

  PublisherDOI

• MIXING TRADITIONS:

  Oxbow Books · 2019-09-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• P Gregory Warden

  Berkeley College

  25 shared

• Lisa Kressbach

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  25 shared

• Anthony Tuck

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  25 shared

• Rex Leiden

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  25 shared

• Stephan Steingräber

  25 shared

• David Nielsen

  University of North Carolina at Asheville

  25 shared

• Stephan Soren

  Walter de Gruyter (Germany)

  25 shared

• Nayla Muntasser

  Berkeley College

  25 shared

Awards & honors

• Rome Prize, Irene Rosenzweig/Lily Auchincloss/Samuel H. Kres…
• John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship, Archaeological Institu…
• Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Teaching Fellowship, Ins…
• Salvatori Research Grant, Center for Italian Studies, Univer…