It is a huge honour to be able to announce that, as part of International LEGO Classicism Day 2022 (#ILCD2022), I have been named as International Lego Classicist of the Year 2022. The Lego Classicist himself kindly sent me my ILCD 2022 figure, which you can see below!
You can find out more about the wonderful Lego Classicist Family, and their creator – Liam D. Jensen – here Liam is based in Sydney, Australia and he very kindly joined live as part of my latest Facebook Q&A on 17th February (necessitating him getting up at 4am Australia time!) to announce the award, as well as take part in a Lego Themed Q&A about the ancient world. We covered topics like the similarities between Lego construction and ancient Greek and Roman construction techniques, the Latin links to the naming of Lego itself and how I first started using Lego for my studies when I built a replica of Delphi in Lego for my PhD back in 2005-7! Check out more about the Q&A – and more – on my Facebook page
International Lego Classicism Day is on 20th February each year and is celebrated around the world by the 121 members of the Lego Classicist family, as well as by a number of museums, University Classics Departments (including mine at Warwick) and other interested groups. You can read more about ILCD here
The honour of being International Lego Classicist of the Year 2022 is only greater when you see previous winners of the award: Michael Turner, who was the creator of the Lego Acropolis on display at the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, Dr Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta of Assassins’ Creed Odyssey; Prof John Bennet of the British School at Athens and in 2021, Dr Donna Zuckerberg, who has championed a brilliant range of new approaches to Classical studies as well as championing Classics as a subject everyone can and should contribute to.
I could not resist a few photos this week bringing my 2019 Lego Classicist figure and my new International Lego Classicist of the Year figure together. Even more fitting is that we have just moved into to a brand new state of the art Faculty of Arts Building (known as FAB!) at the University of Warwick, complete with our own Antiquities Room where we can display to the world our collection of ancient artifacts, as well as our collection of replicas that we use for teaching. I cant think of a more fitting location for the Lego figures!
And finally, I absolutely could not resist a bit of fun with the figures interacting with the (replica!) ancient Greek drinking vessels! Enjoy – and do celebrate International Lego Classicism Day in 2022 and every year on 20th February by tweeting/ Instagram-ing/ Tiktok-ing/ Facebook-ing your love of Lego and the ancient world with #ILCD2022!
