Charlee Mandy is a Roman archaeologist in the Classical Studies interdepartmental Ph.D. program. She is interested in ancient Roman material culture and social history, particularly that of slavery, religion, and daily life for non-elites. Charlee earned her B.A. from Cornell University (2023) and also attended the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (2022).
She has studied the roles of enslaved people in Pompeiian domestic ritual, particularly their relationship to the Lares, deities that may have provided a substitutionary outlet for occluding complete reliance upon enslaved labor. Most recently, Charlee’s MA thesis, “Sleeping Flasks, Waiting Lamps: Self-Reflexive Servile Objects of Ptolemaic Egypt,” examined terracotta lantern- and flask-bearers from the Fayum, functional art creating by their very usage an unstable social embodiment of mastery and servility.
Charlee works as a field archaeologist, at the Marzuolo Archaeological Project (2022-2024) excavating a Roman rural crafting community and then on the APAHA Tibur Project at Hadrian’s villa (2025). She is also passionate about community-engaged archaeology and outreach work, having worked with St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca NY and currently serving as the graduate student Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Archaeology.
