Archaeology

The Urban Connectivity in Iron Age and Roman southern Spain Project, funded by the AHRC between 2002 and 2005 with subsequent support by the University of Southampton and institutions in Seville, has been studying changing social, economic and geographical relationships between some 195 towns and nucleated settlements in central and western Baetica between c.500 BC and AD 200. The project has the following five research questions, based on data gathered in the field and through archival research between 2002 and 2008:

"The nature of the processes by which the economic and cultural elements commonly characterised as 'Neolithic' spread across Europe in the period following 7000 BC has been much debated in recent years. In order to distinguish the various processes responsible, it is necessary to identify those elements which are present in each area and to date them accurately, not least in relation to the latest dates for the local Mesolithic.

"This project by Conservation Technologies, National Museums Liverpool, was concerned with recording and digital reconstruction of a 13th-century Japanese statue of Buddha in the World Museum Liverpool. The subject of this investigation was a 70cm-high wooden sculpture probably made in Japan during the Kamakura period (1185 – 1333). Painted floral decoration visible today was applied during the later Edo period (1600 – 1868). There are also other changes in the original appearance and some features are missing.

The research objective is to read or reconstruct the Arabic documents found at the harbour town of Quseir on the Egyptian Red Sea coast during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (13th-15th centuries)
ie:
a) to evaluate the texts combined with archeological enquiry;
b) to examine the content and context within the framework of the long distance trade and pilgrim traffic from Quesir as a chief port of the Red Sea region and its trade contacts with the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.