Dr. Jess Venner

speaker

222 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 20 Jul

Dr. Jess Venner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

Science Friday · How do you piece together what life was like in Pompeii? · 20 Jul 2026 podcast

She's a very big worshiper of Isis, but she's clearly a business woman on her own because she's advertising this in her own name.

And she's daughter of Spurius, which kind of means that she isn't claiming a father figure in her life.

And she's not claiming either a guardian or a husband.

She might be a widow, but she doesn't mention it.

So she's really, really interesting as an independent figure.

Yeah, exactly.

So it is so, so vast.

And I originally wrote it by just remembering these things intuitively.

So for example, when Petrinus, the slave in the first chapter, he walks through and does a shopping trip essentially through the city.

So we see a lot of different places.

I would go as granular as finding fish scales on the floor.

And that was where the fish market was.

Like with a little, should I imagine you like, you know, in a dig with like a tiny little brush finding a fish scale?

Do you know, not me specifically.

I have been doing that today on another one in Knossos, but not that one in Pompeii particularly.

But amazingly, there's so many archives of these archaeological remains that I can go to.

and say okay this is exactly what this shop would have looked like this is exactly what this bakery would have looked like this is where the slaves would have moved inside it this is where the oven was this is where they would have prepared the bread right down to those granular details even down to the objects that were left i have for example julia felix and a friend looking for perfume in the friend's house and i knew exactly where the cupboard was what sort of perfume bottles were found inside um a little grape bottle so it gets shaped like a bunch of grapes

So it gets really, really granular.

Yes.

It is.

Showing 81–100 of 222 · page 5 of 12