Centre for Endangered Archaeology and Heritage

🎉 Last week, the Centre for Endangered Archaeology and Heritage was thrilled to host an event in honour of Prof. David Mattingly, who is retiring after more than 30 years at the University of Leicester, celebrating his many contributions in the fields of North African archaeology and heritage protection.

👩‍🎓🧑‍🎓 The all-day workshop featured talks from many of David’s current and former colleagues and PhD students, on a wide variety of subjects, including olive oil production in Roman-period Libya, underwater archaeology, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, the Medieval Sahara in Morocco, and much more.

🤩 It was amazing to have so many of David’s former students and colleagues gathered together, some seeing each other for the first time in many years, to catch up and reminisce about David’s projects past and present.

👏 Thank-you to everyone who contributed and attended this fantastic day!

Registration is open now for this fantastic event hosted by BILNAS at the British Academy in London, June 12th!

From Archaeology to Art Market, Transforming Provenance Research: Ten Years of Unveiling Cyrenaican Funerary Sculptures The BILNAS Summer Lecture by Dr Morgan Belzic We are delighted to invite guests to attend our Summer Lecture and Reception at the British Academy, London. Dr Belzic's lecture will be followed by an informal drinks reception and traditional Libyan food will be served. Please click here to register fo...

📢Prof. David Mattingly will be giving a lecture entitled 'Writing the Roman Empire: from Leicester to the Sahara and back again' on 28 April' at 7.30pm.

🏛 David will offer some reflections on how his view of the Roman empire has changed over the course of his career, drawing in particular on his work on Britain and North Africa.

❓ The lecture is organised by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society and will be held at Hansom Hall in the Leicester Adult Education College, 50-54 Belvoir St, Leicester LE1 6QL. There will also be a Zoom link for those who want to join online.

💻For more information, visit: https://www.leicesterlitandphil.org.uk/event-5760241

👩‍🎓Last week, our very own Dr Laura Basell gave a keynote lecture at the international conference ‘Scales of Social, Environmental and Cultural Change in Past Societies’ held at the Kiel University, Kiel, Germany. https://www.kielconference.uni-kiel.de/

📚 The conference was organised by the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS and the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 “Scales of Transformation”.

❓The conference explored explore socio-environmental changes in past societies, focusing on the interplay of climate, environment, social relations, material culture, population dynamics, and human perception – an area of research which aligns with the research interests of UoL’s transdisciplinary Institute for Environmental Futures as well as SAAH researchers.

🏛Laura’s lecture, entitled The Dartmoor Tor Enclosures Survey (DATES) Project, presented innovative methodological approaches and exciting new results from fieldwork she directs on tor enclosures in conjunction with Dartmoor National Park Authority funded by the Society of Antiquaries, NERC, DNPA and UoL.

🎉 It was fascinating and really helpful to compare results with other researchers in the “Neolithic stone-walled enclosures in Western and Northern Europe” session convened by Audrey Blanchard and Jean-Noël Guyodo. She made time to visit a fantastic local maritime museum which included a beautiful exhibition of nautical and geomatic equipment.

Kathleen Kenyon Building Naming Ceremony After a decades-long campaign from staff and students, the home of the University of Leicester’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History and School of Muse...

📣 Our Mohamed Kenawi has written a blog about EAMENA's 10 years documenting archaeology in the MENA region. There are now around 370,000 recorded heritage places in the EAMENA database.

Read all about it here👇🏻
https://peoplingthepast.com/2025/02/21/blog-post-104-eamena-project-ten-years-documenting-endangered-archaeology-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/

School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford
Archaeology at Durham University

📣 Read our Bill Finlayson and Bijan Rouhani's recent article on 'Constructing, Deconstructing, and Reconstructing Heritage Values Amidst Conflicts', which emphasises the importance of reassessing heritage values in the context of conflicts and diverse societies.

It highlights how cultural heritage can easily be weaponised and calls for cultural heritage professionals to adopt equitable preservation practices that respect diverse identities and memories associated with heritage sites.

Read it here: 👇🏻
https://repositori.udl.cat/server/api/core/bitstreams/2118b749-1394-4f58-9060-9a824b404d56/content



School of Archaeology, University of Oxford
School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
Archaeology at Durham University

Our Dr Mohamed Kenawi recently attended a workshop in Cairo on the 'Heritage of Human Adaptations in Egypt and Sudan'. See the post below for more details about this productive meeting, exploring themes of climate change and the preservation of prehistoric heritage 👇

📢Our very own Prof David Mattingly will be giving the Annual lecture for the Leicester Literature and Philosophical Society, in partnership with the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery on April 28th.

🏛In advance of his retirement in summer 2025, this lecture will offer some reflections on how his view of the Roman empire has changed over the course of a career, drawing in particular on his work on Britain and North Africa. The lecture will explore how perceptions of the Roman empire still remain profoundly influenced by modern colonial experiences. He shall argue for the need to reassess the impacts of empire and to examine the very varied experiences of Roman colonialism that occurred across its provinces. The city of Leicester, both ancient and modern, provides an interesting backdrop for challenging our assumptions about Roman imperialism

🎟More information on how to book tickets can be found here: https://www.leicesterlitandphil.org.uk/event-5760241

🎥The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests and will take place in Hansom Hall. It will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only

👩‍🎓Last week, SAAH's Prof. Ruth Young co-convened an international symposium in Jaffna, Sri Lanka on 'Rethinking Heritage: Conflict, reconciliation and agency'.

🏛The event brought together colleagues from NGOs, sociologists, historians, museum curators and archaeologists to discuss how heritage is used in post-conflict situations and how to think through nationalist agendas in heritage.