Recent research: Dura & beyond

My main recent research project comprised a study of the Roman military garrison community and its base at the city of Dura-Europos on the Syrian Euphrates, and how it fitted into its 'host' civil community. This is the best known example of a major urban military base from the Roman empire. Much of the base was excavated in the 1930s, but never properly studied or published.

I conducted fieldwork at Dura from 2005-10, and on the old expedition archive at Yale for longer, in a project leading to a heavily-illustrated book published in 2019. This work took on new significance in 2014, as it records much that has now been destroyed during catastrophic, industrial-scale plundering of the site by looters exploiting the chaos of Syria's civil war.

Meanwhile, I maintained my wider interests in archaeological visualisation, and in the Iron Age and the 'Celts'. The former was through my involvement in the Visualisation in Archaeology project. The latter was through participation in the multidisciplinary, interdepartmental, Leverhulme-funded programme, Impact of Diasporas on the Making of Britain, and publications on Iron-Age European warfare and violence.

From 2011-2016 I was also fortunate to be involved in a number of projects with Operation Nightingale, helping injured military personnel and veterans to recover and move on with their lives through engaging with archaeology. This collaboration with UK Armed Forces and Ministry of Defence archaeologists led to my current project in Cyprus.