Parrish Elizabeth Wright studies the history and archaeology of pre-Roman and Roman Italy with the use of both textual and material evidence. She received her Ph.D. in Greek and Roman History and her M.A. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan, and she holds a B.A. in Classics from McGill University. Before coming to South Carolina, she was the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Her research centers on foundation stories in southern and central Italy from the Iron Age to the Roman conquest, specifically how both Greek settlements and indigenous groups use myth to articulate identity and build connections throughout the Mediterranean. In her current book project, she demonstrates the value of these stories to building communities and argues for a rich historiographic tradition in southern Italy largely independent of Rome and Athens. Her research has been supported by several grants and awards, including a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship and a Tytus Fellowship at the University of Cincinnati.

Parrish is also actively engaged in archaeological research in Italy. She is currently the Field Director at the Torre Mordillo Archaeology Project, investigating a plateau in the plain of the ancient Greek city Sybaris, in Calabria, Italy. She also conducts archaeological research at the Gabii Project, an ancient city just outside of Rome.

Students interested in fieldwork in Classical Archaeology are encouraged to get in touch!

Recent Publications

Wright, Parrish. 2026. “Developing Identities in Indigenous and Italiote Communities: A “long” 4th century BCE perspective on Heracles at Crotone” in Tracing the Transformation of Southern Italy in the Long Fourth Century BCE –. Christian Heitz, Matthias Hoernes, Agnes Henning, Ted Robinson, eds. Routledge: 331 – 336.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003407560-20

Evans, M. Banducci, L. Gallone, A. Wright, P. Almonte M., Andreotti, C., Bochicchio, R. 2025. “The Gabii Legacy Data Project: Preliminary Results from the Heart of the Ancient City.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 70: 138-186. 
https://doi.org/10.2307/27442690