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An atelier in France

    Around the end of 2014 I received an invitation to present a paper at a workshop organised by the Université d’Artois. This workshop, which takes the form of a series of meetings, deals with the perception of landscapes in ancient textual sources. Its aim is to investigate how did ancient authors face new, previously unfamiliar places and by what means did they describe them (i.e. transmit the information) for the general public who was unable to travel there. Continue reading →

Starting research in literary sources

I joined the Portus-Limen Project only very recently thanks to a PhD studentship. My research involves an analysis of the literary sources, in order to define and precise the terms relating to sea-faring. In this post I will just give an example of the kind of research I’m carrying out, namely from a passage in Strabo. Commenting anything from such a well-known author in such little space as a blog post is difficult, please excuse me for any gross simplifications. In Strabo, 3.4. Continue reading →

International Conference: Roman Port Societies through the evidence of inscriptions

The British School at Rome 29th and 30th January 2015 Organized by Pascal Arnaud and Simon Keay as part of the ERC Advanced Grant funded Rome’s Mediterranean Ports Project in conjunction with the British School at Rome Draft Programme Thursday 29th January 2015 9.00-9.05 Introduction and Welcome: Professor Christopher Smith (Director of the BSR) 9.05-9.20 The Portuslimen Project: Simon Keay (BSR and Southampton) 9.20-9. Continue reading →

Ancient harbor geoarchaeology

My research arises from the realization that due to silting up process, many Roman harbour basin sites were perfect sedimentary traps that have been in-filled with a range of deposits that are well suited for palaeo-environmental studies. My methodological approach is upon the laboratory-based analysis of sedimentary cores drilled into these ancient basins. Continue reading →

Geoarchaeological studies

My name is Ferréol. I am a geographer specialist in fluvial and coastal geomorphology, especially in deltaic context. I use geomorphological knowledges in order to understand palaeolandscapes and archaeological sites in their natural environment. I participated to the geoarchaeological studies of the harbour of Avaris in Egypt (Tronchère et al. 2008; 2011), and the roman harbour basins of Portus and Ostia in Italy (Goiran et al. 2010; 2014). Continue reading →