UCL Qatar
Academic Staff
Edgar Pusch
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Research Fellow e.pusch@ucl.ac.uk Tel: +974 4457 8694 |
Jane Humphris
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Research Fellow Jane has been researching pre-colonial African iron production since 2001, and has excavated in Uganda, Kenya Tanzania, Botswana, and most recently in Rwanda for her PhD research. As an Africanist archaeometallurgist, her particular interests lie in past production style and technique and what this can reveal about the choices that were made by the metallurgists, as well as what this in turn can reveal about the role and impact of iron in society. In the field, representative sampling is a particular concern of hers, and she recently developed a sampling strategy to overcome issues associated with arbitrary archaeometallurgical remains. The ethnographic record is also something that Jane uses to enrich her research. As well as conducting interviews in Uganda and Rwanda, she has also commissioned an ethno-experimental iron production episode, during which she recorded all stages of the production process. She combines such data with laboratory analysis of archaeometallurgical samples she collects in the field, to both reconstruct and contextualise the iron industries she studies. |
Karen Exell
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Lecturer in Museum
Studies
Dr Karen Exell is Lecturer in Museum Studies at UCL Qatar. She lectures specifically on the development of practical skills in collections care and management, interpretive methods and emerging digital technologies. Her research interests include the reception and perception of Egypt in the West, museums and the creation of knowledge in relation to heritage and archaeology, and the impact of museums on cultural identity. She is currently developing a project to evaluate the impact of the rapid development of museums and heritage sites in Qatar on local cultural identities and external perceptions of Qatari heritage. Dr Exell holds a PhD in Egyptology from the University of
Durham and a BA in Egyptology from the University of Oxford, and has
been employed for over 15 years in museums and heritage in the United
Kingdom and Egypt. She has worked predominantly in university museums,
curating ancient Egypt and associated collections at the University of
Manchester and University of Durham, as well as teaching Egyptology,
Archaeology and Museology. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Exell, K. and T. Rico (eds) 2013 (in preparation) Heritage Practices in the Arabian Peninsula. Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Exell, K. and T. Rico. 2013 (submitted). ‘There is no heritage in Qatar’: Orientalism, Colonialism and other Problematic Histories. World Archaeology. Exell, K. 2013 (in press) ‘Ritual and Performance in Ramesside Egypt’ in Egypt: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. Edited by R.J. Dann and K. Exell. New York: Cambria Press. Exell, K. and R.J. Dann (eds) 2013 (in press) Egypt: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies. New York: Cambria Press. Exell, K. 2013 (in press). Covering the Mummies at the Manchester Museum: a discussion of individual agendas within the human remains debate. In Dealing with the Dead: Mortuary Archaeology and Contemporary Society, edited by Howard Williams and Melanie Giles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Exell, K. 2013 (in press). Domination and Desire: The Paradox of Egyptian Mummies in Museums. In Objects and Materials. A Routledge Companion. Edited by Penelope Harvey. London: Routledge. Exell, K. 2013 (in press). Engaging with Egypt: Community Consultation and the Redevelopment of the Ancient Egypt Galleries at The Manchester Museum. In Museums and Communities. Edited by Viv Golding and Wayne Modest. Oxford: Berg. Exell, K. 2012. Teaching as Learning: UCL Qatar’s museum studies Masters programme in Qatar one year on. In Reimagining Museums: Practice in the Arabian Peninsula. Edited by Pamela Erskine-Loftus. Edinburgh and Boston: MuseumsEtc. Exell, K. 2012. Egyptology. In The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Archaeology. Edited by Neil Asher-Silberman (editor-in-chief). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Exell, K. (ed.) 2010. Egypt in its African Context. Oxford: Archaeopress. Exell, K. 2010. ‘The Stela of Dedu’ in Treasures of the Oriental Museum. Edited by C. Barclay, R. Grocke and H. Armstrong. Durham University/London: Third Millennium Publishing, pp. 128-129. Exell, K. 2009. Soldiers, Sailors and Sandalmakers. A Social Reading of Ramesside Period Votive Stelae. London: Golden House Publications. Exell, K. 2008. ‘Ancestor Bust’ in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, edited by Willeke Wendrich. Los Angeles: http://repositories.cdlib.org/nelc/uee/1031 Exell, K. and C. Naunton. 2007. ‘Administration’ in The Egyptian World, edited by Toby Wilkinson. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 91-104. Exell, K. 2006. ‘The Tomb Scribe, Ramose, and the cult of the king: a social and historical reading of some private votive stelae from Deir el Medina in the reign of Ramesses II’, in Proceedings of Current Research in Egyptology V. Edited by R.J. Dann. Oxford: Oxbow Press, pp. 51-67.
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Rob Carter
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Senior Lecturer in Arab
Archaeology
Robert Carter has been studying and working in the Gulf for nearly 20 years, as an archaeologist, museum consultant and historian. He originally trained as a historian at Oxford, before switching to archaeology at University College London, completing his Masters in 1993 and PhD in 1998 (on the Bronze Age in eastern Arabia). Since 1993 he has conducted fieldwork, artefact studies and consultancy in most countries of the Gulf, including Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras al-Khaimah, Fujairah and Iran. His interests in Middle Eastern and Arabian archaeology are broad, but he is particularly interested in people’s relationship with the sea. While working in Kuwait with a UCL team he was lucky enough to discover evidence of very early seafaring in the Gulf (Neolithic period, ca. 5000 BC), allowing him to document the existence of a trading network of hitherto unsuspected complexity and antiquity, which connected the herders and fishers of Arabia with the villagers of Iraq. One of the discoveries in Kuwait was a pierced pearl, and this led Dr Carter to his next major field of research, which was the pearl fishery of the Gulf. This had its origins in the Neolithic, but continued up to the 20th century AD, by which time it utterly dominated the economic life of the majority of the inhabitants of the region. Dr Carter is about to publish a book (Sea of Pearls, Arabian Publishing) in which he explores the formative role played by the pearl fishery in the shaping of the Gulf countries we see today. Another strand of Dr Carter’s research concerns the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia (Iraq and Syria). This focuses on the Ubaid Period (5th and 6th millennia BC), when the foundations of urbanism were laid, and when a vast interaction zone spread from the Mediterranean to the Straits of Hormuz (encompassing the Neolithic trading network mentioned above) . Dr Carter is also currently working on medieval settlement and trade (based on excavations at Julfar, Ras al-Khaimah, UAE), and also has interests in the Bronze Age civilizations of Arabia, archaeological ceramics, the archaeology of Christianity in the Gulf, and Late Islamic archaeology and urbanism. At UCL Qatar Dr Carter is looking forward to teaching a great range of topics in Middle Eastern and Arab World archaeology, from the Palaeolithic to the coming of Islam, and hopes to enthuse future generations of local and international archaeologists. He hopes to start excavations soon in Qatar, and make the best use of this unprecedented opportunity to promote research in Qatar, the Gulf and the Middle East. A selection of his publications are listed below. For a full list see: http://www.ucl.academia.edu/RobertCarter/Papers Books Carter, R.A. in press. Sea of Pearls. London: Arabian Publishing. Carter, R.A. & Crawford, H.E.W. 2010. Maritime interactions in the Arabian Neolithic. Leiden: Brill. Carter, R.A. & Philip, G. 2010. Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East. Chicago: Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization Series. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Carter, R.A. & Killick, R. 2010. Al-Khor Island: Investigating Coastal Exploitation in Bronze Age Qatar. Ludlow: Archaeology International. E-publication: http://www.moonrisepress.co.uk/?p=38 Articles Carter, R.A. in press. Watercraft of the Ancient Near East. In ed. Potts D.T. Blackwell Companion to the Ancient Near East. Oxford: Blackwell. Carter, R.A. 2010 The Social and Environmental Context of Neolithic Seafaring in the Persian Gulf. In (eds.) A. Anderson, J. Barret and K. Boyle. The Global Origins and Development of Seafaring. Cambridge, McDonald Institute: 191-202. Carter, R.A. 2008 Christianity in the Gulf during the first centuries of Islam. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 19/1: 71-108. Carter, R.A. 2006 Boat Remains and Maritime Trade in the Persian Gulf during the 6th and 5th millennia BC. Antiquity 80/307: 52-63. Carter, R.A. 2005 The History and Prehistory of Pearling in the Persian Gulf. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 48/2: 139-209. |
Stavroula Golfomitsou
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Lecturer in
Conservation Studies
Stavroula holds a PhD in conservation of metals from UCL, London and a BA on objects conservation from Athens, Greece. She has a broad background in the analysis of metals and she has worked in Greece, Malta, Egypt, Turkey, Italy and France. Since 2001 she has been teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels (BA, MA and MSc) in Malta and Greece and she has delivered workshops and seminars in conservation of metals in Egypt, Oman and Peru. In 2009 she was seconded by the Greek Ministry of Culture to ICCROM as Laboratory coordinator.
Her research interests include conservation and analysis of metals, use of statistical methods in experimental design, quantification of errors in non-destructive analysis, risk assessment and decision making processes in conservation.
Selected papers
Rapti S, Margariti C, Golfomitsou S, Pitsiri P, Boyatzis, S. Argyropoulos, V. 2010. Conservation of a Marine Composite (Copper/Textile) from the 19th century Shipwreck ‘Patris in Greece’, 11th Wet Organics and Archaeological Materials (WOAM) conference May 2010, North Carolina.
S.Golfomitsou and J.F.Merkel 2007: “Understanding the efficiency of combined inhibitors for the treatment of corroded copper artefacts In ICOM-CC Metal 07 Preprints (Degrigny et al, eds). Amsterdam.
C.Degrigny, A.G. Karydas, S. Golfomitsou, V. Kantarelou, Ch. Zarkadas, D. Vella, 2007 “Methodology for the in-situ analyses of historic steel armours with portable milli and micro-XRF spectrometers”. In ICOM-CC Metal 07 Preprints (Degrigny et al, eds.), Amsterdam
C.Degrigny, D.Vella, S.Golfomitsou, J.Crawford 2007: “Characterisation of Corrosion Layers on Historic Steel Artefacts. Application to the Armour Elements of the Palace Armoury, Valletta, Malta”. In CSSIM conference held in Cairo, February 2007
S.Golfomitsou and J.F.Merkel 2004. Synergistic effects of corrosion inhibitors for copper and copper alloy archaeological artefacts. In ICOM-CC Metal 2004 preprints, Canberra, Australia S.Golfomitsou. 2002. Preliminary experimental results of corrosion inhibition of copper/copper alloy artefacts from the archaeological site of Kaman Kalehoyuk. In Kaman Kalehoyuk 2000. |
Thilo Rehren
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Director – UCL Qatar th.rehren@ucl.ac.uk Tel: +974 4457 8683 |
Thilo has extensive research experience across a wide range of regions, periods and materials. His main focus is on the reconstruction of past technologies linked to the production of metals and glass, which includes a strong interest in technical ceramics.
In ancient glass, he has worked extensively on Late Bronze Age glass making in Egypt, including providing the first demonstrable proof of actual glass-making during this period, studying Hellenistic and Roman to Late Antique glass chemistry, and investigating the relationship between glass and glaze compositions in early Islamic Central Asia.
In archaeometallurgy, Thilo has initially focused on the role that crucibles played in producing and manipulating metals and alloys. Based on this, he has then covered a number of furnace-based smelting processes and artefacts, too. His publications include original research on South American silver production spanning some 2,000 years; Islamic gold production and ore refining; medieval lead smelting and the role of lead in silver cupellation from the Early Bronze Age to the early Modern Period; Neolithic to Bronze Age copper smelting in the Balkans; the production of Roman and medieval brass and zinc; Islamic crucible steel production in Central Asia and its comparison to the early modern crucible steel production in India and Sri Lanka; and the earliest industrial production of pure platinum for coinage in early 19th century Russia.
In addition to his role as Director of UCL Qatar, Thilo maintains close links with the UCL Institute of Archaeology, where he continues to supervise PhD students and to direct the Institute's cooperation with Peking University in Beijing, as Executive Director of the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology.
Outside UCL, Thilo is
one of the editors of the Journal of Archaeological Science, cooperates as
Visiting Professor with the Institute for Historical Metals and Materials at
the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and acts on several advisory
boards for archaeological science departments and research groups.
Timothy Power
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Lecturer in Islamic
Archaeology timothy.power@ucl.ac.uk Tel: +974 4457 8697 |
Tim lectures in Islamic Archaeology at UCL Qatar. He was previously employed as a consultant to the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, responsible for the excavation and publication of Islamic period sites in the al-Ain Oasis - awarded UNESCO world heritage status in 2011.
Tim studied Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and completed his doctorate on the Red Sea basin from Byzantium to the Caliphate (forthcoming spring 2012 with the AUC Press). His broader research interests focus on production and exchange in the pre-modern Dar al-Islam, in particular the trade of the Indian Ocean and its tributaries.
Trinidad Rico
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Honorary Lecturer t.rico@ucl.ac.uk Tel: +974 4457 8680 |
Trinidad holds a PhD in Anthropology and an M.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Stanford University, an M.A. in Principles of Conservation from UCL, and a B.A. in Archeology from University of Cambridge. Her doctorate addressed the re-construction of heritage in post-disaster Indonesia. She has previously worked at the Getty Conservation Institute and in archeological and field conservation projects around Europe, Turkey, Oman, Argentina, South Africa and the USA. Her broad research interests focus on critical heritage theory, including epistemology in conservation practice, the management of risk in cultural context, and the construction of heritage in the framework of Islamic societies.
UCL Qatar, PO Box 23689, 2nd Floor, Georgetown Building, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Doha,
Qatar. Telephone: +974 4457 8680.
