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Alasdair Whittleā€™s ā€œTimes of their Livesā€ project in Seville

I have just spent an intense but immensely rewarding few days with the Alasdair Whittleā€™s ā€œTimes of their Livesā€ project in Seville, Andalucia, where a new dating programme for the fantastic Copper Age site of Valencina de la Conception is starting to take shape. Valencina is a site Iā€™ve been interested in for some time with my long term collaborator and friend Leo Garcia (Seville University) and itā€™s an exceptional site in many ways. Continue reading →

Luxor, time for reflection, and some useful information

Finally got back from Antinoupolis to Luxor on 5th March, after a great season in the field with Jay Heidel. The Italian mission from the University of Florence closed the dig accommodation on the morning, and we took a micro bus up on to the desert edge through Deir Abu Hines and Deir el Bershar, then south along the desert road, around the Qena bend in the Nile and down to the bright lights of Luxor. Continue reading →

RTI at the Urban Variation Conference, Gothenburg

Last week Gareth and I travelled to Gothenburg in Sweden to present at the Urban Variation conference.Ā  The conference website is here: http://conference.earlymoderntown.com/urban-variation/.Ā  The conference was organised by the Early Modern Town Project team (find the University of Gothenburg project website, here; http://www.earlymoderntown.com/) and was attended by a multidisciplinary crowd of academics and professionals. Continue reading →

1st March day off and visit to the Via Hadriana and quarries of Antinoupolis

After another long week of survey, it was good to get out for a morning, away from the noise of Sheikh Ebada, and to have a look at the broader landscape of the ancient city of Antinoupolis. The planned itinerary was to walk up past the hippodrome, and along the wadi, finding the start of the ramp that leads to the Via Hadriana, the road linking Antinoupolis and the Nile with the Red Sea coast. Continue reading →

Ice Age Art and the question of sex

There are many old friends in the British Museumā€™s must-see Ice Age Art exhibition. As a research student in the early 1970s I worked for several months in the Ulmer Museum in southern Germany. Every day on my way into the storerooms to measure more Palaeolithic reindeer teeth I passed the ivory statuette of the Lƶwenmensch, the Lion-headed-man. There was less of him in those days. His muzzle had not yet been handed in and big chunks of his back were missing. Continue reading →

Childish enthusiasm and Sculptural Hypertext

I gave my first seminar yesterday, talking about how I come to begin the PhD. It seemed to go pretty well, and was recorded for posterity, so when it appears online, I’ll post a link to it. But before the seminar I spoke at a workshop examining Digital Narratives, and was impressed and excited by all the other speakers. One in particular got my childish enthusiasm all fired up though. Continue reading →

End of another week of magnetometry and topographic survey

Another week of survey at Antinoupolis is at an end. This week work focused on survey in the area of the ancient city, between the northern corner of the walls and the east gate survey area from 2012. In addition Jay has spent the last few days starting a GPS topographic survey of the east gate and the hippodrome to the north-east of the city. Results of the hippodrome topography are looking impressive. Continue reading →

Visit to the Sheikh Ebada mosque and the tomb of Ebada Ibn Samet

Once again finding time to be able to write is getting difficult, with the survey work going on at a strong pace. Time for two blogs this evening, later on some updates on the survey, but for now a description of a short trip the team made the other evening to the mosque in Sheikh Ebada, and to the tomb of Ebada Ibn Samet. The mosuqe is located in t he northern part of Sheikh Ebada, aligned with the northern decumanus of the Roman city. Continue reading →