David Kennedy | |
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Born | David Leslie Kennedy 25 April 1948 |
Nationality | British and Australian |
Citizenship | United Kingdom and Australia |
Alma mater | University of Manchester; University of Oxford |
Known for | Archaeology and history of the Roman Near East, Aerial Archaeology of the Middle East, Roman military studies, Kite studies |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Archaeology History |
Institutions | University of Sheffield; Boston University; University of Western Australia |
David Leslie Kennedy (born 25 April 1948) is an archaeologist and historian of the Roman Near East, with a focus on Aerial Archaeology, Roman landscape studies and the Roman military. He is Emeritus Professor and Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Roman Archaeology and History at the University of Western Australia.
David Kennedy completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA (Hons)) in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Manchester in 1974, and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) by the University of Oxford in 1980. He taught at the University of Sheffield (1976–1989) and Boston University (1989–90) before taking up a position at the University of Western Australia in 1990, ultimately as a Winthrop Professor. He retired in October 2017, returned part-time on a research grant in 2018 and retired again in January 2020.
He has been a Tweedie Exploration Fellow (1976–7), a Cotton Fellow (2004–5), a Member (1986-7 and 2004) and Visitor (2005, 2012 and 2017) at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a Stanley J Seager Fellow at Princeton University (2005-6 and 2013) and Visiting Fellow at Brasenose College, University of Oxford (2013). In 1986–87 he held a Senior Fulbright Travel Scholarship (UK to USA) a University of Western Australia 75th Anniversary Award in 1993.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1985– ) and of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (1995– ).
In 2002 Kennedy was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Federal Government "for services to ... archaeology".
He is Chair of the Roman Archaeology Group (RAG), Perth, established in 2004 to promote interest in Roman Archaeology.
David Kennedy's research focus is on the Roman Near East, with an emphasis on Jordan. His interests encapsulate Roman landscape studies, military studies, as well as Roman infrastructure in the Near East.
Kennedy established (1978) and directed (until 2018) the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME), a project designed to investigate, document and photograph archaeological sites throughout this region using remote sensing. [1] This includes historical imagery and mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography. The project is designed both to develop a methodology suited to the region and to illuminate settlement history in the Near East.
Between 1997 and 2018 Kennedy conducted annual aerial reconnaissance over Jordan – the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan (AAJ) project, as part of the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan project. the first – and until recently, only such programme in the Middle East. The project digitises and makes use of international collections, as well as increasing availability of satellite imagery through programs such as Google Earth and Bing in order to conduct wider surveys of the region. A brief video made by Google for its 'Search' series David Kennedy: Ancient Ruins has been published on YouTube which explains the development of this process.
For two years from January 2018 to 2020 he was Director of the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (AlUla) (AAKSAU) and Aerial Archaeology in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Khaybar) (AAKSAK) projects. His other projects have included the Jarash Hinterland Survey with Fiona Baker (2005–2011), a rescue project at the Classical city of Zeugma on the Euphrates (1993–2001) and currently the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East.
David Kennedy's work on aerial photography and satellite surveys has also resulted in part of his research being directed towards more ancient archaeological remains in the Near East, such as Desert Kites. Kennedy has been working on making research more accessible by publishing in iBook format, the first of which is the Kites in Arabia ibook which was made available on iTunes. [2] In February 2016 an article titled 93-Mile-Long Ancient Wall in Jordan Puzzles Archaeologists was published on LiveScience which showcases some of the recent activity in this research area undertaken by David Kennedy and his team.
Select publications: [3]
Petra, originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system, Petra is also called the "Rose City" because of the colour of the sandstone from which it is carved; it was famously called "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a poem of 1845 by John Burgon. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Access to the city is through a famously picturesque 1.2-kilometre-long gorge called the Siq, which leads directly to the Khazneh.
Aerial archaeology is the study of archaeological remains by examining them from a higher altitude. In present day, this is usually achieved by satellite images or through the use of drones.
Richard Hodges, is a British archaeologist and past president of The American University of Rome. A former professor and director of the Institute of World Archaeology at the University of East Anglia (1996–2007), Hodges is also the former Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. His published research primarily concerns trade and economics during the early part of the Middle Ages in Europe. His earlier works include Dark Age Economics (1982), Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe (1983) and Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo Al Volturno (1997).
Zeugma was an ancient Hellenistic era Greek and then Roman city of Commagene; located in modern Gaziantep Province, Turkey. It was named for the bridge of boats, or zeugma, that crossed the Euphrates at that location. Zeugma Mosaic Museum contains mosaics from the site, and is one of the largest mosaic museums in the world.
Pre-Islamic Arabia, referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah, highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time.
Safaitic is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the Arabs in southern Syria and northern Jordan in Ḥarrah region, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and Ancient North Arabian. The Safaitic script is a member of the Ancient North Arabian (ANA) sub-grouping of the South Semitic script family, the genetic unity of which has yet to be demonstrated.
Nicholas J. Saunders is a British academic archaeologist and anthropologist. He was educated at the universities of Sheffield, Cambridge, and Southampton. He has held teaching and research positions at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of the West Indies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., and at University College London, where he was Reader in Material Culture, and undertook a major British Academy sponsored investigation into the material culture anthropology of the First World War (1998–2004). As of 2014 Saunders was Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol, where he was responsible for the MA programmes in historical archaeology and conflict archaeology. As of 2018, he is Emeritus Professor of Material Culture in that department. He is a prominent contributor to the nascent field of conflict archaeology, and has authored and edited numerous academic publications in the field. In addition to his research specialising in the anthropology of 20th-century conflicts and the archaeology of World War I theatres in Belgium, France and the Middle East, Saunders has also conducted extensive fieldwork and research in pre-Columbian and historical archaeology of the Americas. He has been involved with major museum exhibitions in London, Ypres (Belgium), Tübingen (Germany), and at the Centre Pompidou-Metz (France). Saunders has investigated and published on material cultures and landscapes of Mesoamerica, South America, and the Caribbean. His most recent research has been on the aesthetics of brilliance and colour in indigenous Amerindian symbolism, an extensive survey investigation of the Nazca Lines in Peru, the anthropological archaeology of twentieth-century conflict and its legacies along the Soca (Isonzo) Front on the Slovenian-Italian border, and the conflict artworks of the Chinese Labour Corps on the Western Front during and after the First World War.
Ḥarrat Khaybar is a volcanic field located north of Medina in the Hejaz, Saudi Arabia. It covers an area approximately 12,000 km2 (4,600 sq mi). The most recent eruption occurred between 600 and 700 AD. Man-made stone structures dating to the Neolithic period have been studied in Harrat Khaybar.
Jubail Church is a church building near Jubail, a city in the Eastern province on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the oldest churches in the world. It contains two still visible crosses that have been carved into the wall on either side of the middle inner doorway leading from the nave towards the sanctuary.
C. Bradford Welles was an American Classicist and ancient historian, born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. His academic career was at Yale University. He received a B.A. in 1924, a Ph.D. in 1928, became an instructor in 1927, an assistant professor in 1931, an associate professor in 1939 and professor in 1940. At his death he was professor of ancient history and curator of the Yale Collection of Papyri. He was profoundly influenced by the great ancient historian Michael I. Rostovtzeff, who arrived at Yale in 1925.
William Osbert Lancaster was a British social anthropologist who specialised in the study of the Arab world, particularly the bedouin tribes in the Levant and Middle East.
Ralph K. Pedersen is a nautical archaeologist from Levittown New York, United States. He was the DAAD Gastdozent für Nautische Archäologie at Philipps-Universität Marburg 2010–2013, and has been distinguished visiting professor in anthropology and Knapp Chair in Liberal Arts at the University of San Diego, and the Whittlesey Chair Visiting Assistant Professor in the department of history and archaeology at the American University of Beirut. He has been teaching online courses in archaeology in the History Department at Southwestern Assemblies of God University since 2009.
The Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw operates as an independent research institute of the University of Warsaw under the present name since 1990. It is dedicated to organizing, implementing and coordinating archaeological research, both excavations and study projects, as well as conservation, reconstruction and restoration projects, in northeastern Africa, the Near East and Cyprus. Projects include sites covering a broad chronological spectrum from the dawn of civilization through all the historic periods of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations to Late Antiquity and early Islam. Tasks beside fieldwork include comprehensive documentation of finds, archives management and publication of the results in keeping with international research standards. The PCMA manages the Research Centre in Cairo and Polish Archaeological Unit in Khartoum.
Tony James Wilkinson, FBA was a British archaeologist and academic, specialising in landscape archaeology and the Ancient Near East. He was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh from 2005 to 2006, and Professor of Archaeology at Durham University from 2006 to until his death in 2014.
Kathryn Gleason is Professor of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Also a faculty member of the Cornell Institute for Archaeology and Material Studies, her work focuses on the archaeology of landscape architecture, especially the design and interpretation of ancient Roman and Mediterranean gardens and landscapes. Her pioneering field research on archaeological methods for detecting landscape design has been conducted across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, most recently in Italy, Israel, Jordan, and India. She is the editor of A Cultural History of Gardens in Antiquity.
Rubina Raja is a classical archaeologist educated at University of Copenhagen (Denmark), La Sapienza University (Rome) and University of Oxford (England). She is professor (chair) of classical archaeology at Aarhus University and centre director of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet). She specialises in the cultural, social and religious archaeology and history of past societies. Research foci include urban development and network studies, architecture and urban planning, the materiality of religion as well as iconography from the Hellenistic to Early Medieval periods. Her publications include articles, edited volumes and monographs on historiography, ancient portraiture and urban archaeology as well as themes in the intersecting fields between humanities and natural sciences. Rubina Raja received her DPhil degree from the University of Oxford in 2005 with a thesis on urban development and regional identities in the eastern Roman provinces under the supervision of Professors R.R.R. Smith and Margareta Steinby. Thereafter, she held a post-doctoral position at Hamburg University, Germany, before she in 2007 moved to a second post-doctoral position at Aarhus University, Denmark. In 2011–2016, she was a member of the Young Academy of Denmark, where she was elected chairwoman in 2013.
Jennifer Baird, is a British archaeologist and academic. She is Professor in Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research focuses on the archaeology of Rome's eastern provinces, particularly the site of Dura-Europos.
The Khatt Shebib is an ancient wall in Southern Jordan. The remains of the wall are 150 km long, making it the longest linear archaeological site in Jordan. The archaeological ruins were first identified by British diplomat Sir Alec Kirkbride in 1948. Ever since, a range of disciplines, including archaeologists, scientists and anthropologists, have studied the wall. The date of the Khatt Shebib's construction is still unknown, though it has been widely debated by archaeologists. This is evident as some archaeologists argue that the wall was built in the Iron Age, whilst others argue it was constructed in the Nabataean period.
Qasr Usaykhim or Qasr Aseikhin, is probably a Roman fortlet on the extreme eastern edge of the Limes Arabiae et Palaestinae. The solitary outpost would thus possess one of the most spectacular sites of all Roman forts in Jordan. The ruins of the structure are located on the crest of a volcano in the Syrian Desert, Zarqa Governorate and about 18 km northeast of the town of Azraq, overlooking the wadi and allowing vegetation to grow.
Desert kites are dry stone wall structures found in Southwest Asia, which were first discovered from the air during the 1920s. There are over 6,000 known desert kites, with sizes ranging from less than a hundred metres to several kilometres. They typically have a kite shape formed by two convergent "antennae" that run towards an enclosure, all formed by walls of dry stone less than one metre high, but variations exist.