Rachel Mairs

Rachel Mairs' research interests lie, broadly, in cultural and ethnic contact in the Hellenistic world, with special reference to Central Asia and to Egypt. After a B.A. Hons. in Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge (2002), in which her primary specialisation was in the various phases of the Egyptian language, she earned her M.Phil. (2003) and Ph.D. (2006) from the Faculty of Classics at the same institution. Whilst maintaining her Egyptian interests, especially in the edition of Greek and Demotic texts on papyri, her research has increasingly concentrated on the Greek colonial presence in Central Asia in the period after Alexander. Her Ph.D. thesis, on 'Ethnic Identity in the Hellenistic Far East', attempted to bring current sociological theory on the construction and articulation of ethnic identity to a case study where the archaeological and epigraphic evidence is notoriously problematic. Current research interests include language contact and transmission in the Hellenistic world.