WIP with Dr Daniel Jew

(WIP WILL BEGIN AT 6.40pm, TEMBUSU READING ROOM)

How much food could ancient Athens grow? Could it feed itself, or did it rely on foreign grain? I share my work-in-progress on these questions, which have bothered me on and off for twenty years. Scholars before have asked these, but the answer always seemed to be ‘there is no real way to improve on existing figures.’ My search for an answer has led me to roads I never expected: theories of probability, GIS, climate science, dusty WW2-era records, and the infamous ‘oka’. (A unit of measurement in the Ottoman Turkish empire!)