Paul Reynolds

Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

Humanities

Studied for BA at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, gaining a PhD there in 1991 on the Settlement and Pottery of the Vinalopo Valley (Alicante), AD 400-700, which included a detailed review of ceramics and trade in W Mediterranean ports (BAR 588 and 604, published 1993, 1995). Engaged in the study and publication of ceramics from excavations in the Beirut Souks, Butrint and Durres (Albania), Athens, Thesproteia and Nicopolis-Actium (Greece), Carthage, Utica, Leptis Magna, Zeugma and the Homs Survey. "Hispania and the Roman Mediterranean, AD 100-700: ceramics and trade" was published in 2010. Major projects are a volume on the Roman Imperial Amphorae of the Athenian Agora. Co-editor of the Archaeopress (Oxford) series Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery. In 2016 I will lead the study of ceramics in a 3 year American project of survey and excavation in Lechaion, the western port of Corinth (Greece).


Research interests

The principal aim of my research is the study of the economy of the Classical and Late Antique Mediterranean, the lower Danube-Black Sea and Atlantic through the analysis of the regional distribution of ceramics in major ports. This focuses on the long-distance movement of fine table-wares, amphorae & cooking wares. I am interested in all factors that contributed to the supply of goods: private, state, city, ecclesiastical & administrative structures. I have been or am currently engaged in the classification of the Classical to early Islamic pottery of surveys & excavations from a wide range of sites and regions across the Mediterranean: Alicante-SE Spain, NW Sicily, Carthage, Leptis Magna, Butrint and Durres (Albania), Athens, Nicopolis-Actium and Thesproteia (W Greece), Zeugma (Turkey), Beirut-Lebanese sites, and Syria (Homs survey; Ras al Basit). Recent work has focussed on the Islamic pottery of North Africa.

Selected publications

Reynolds P 2016, ‘From Vandal Africa to Arab Ifriqīya: tracing ceramic and economic trends through the 5th to the 11th centuries’, in Stevens S & Conant J (eds.), North Africa under Byzantium and IslamDumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia, (Spring Symposium on Rome Re-imagined:  Byzantine North Africa, c. 400-800, 2012), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.: 129-171.

– Mukai T 2016, ‘La céramique du groupe épiscopal d’Aradi/Sidi Jidi (Tunisie)’, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 9, Archaeopress, Oxford (434pp).

– Various authors 2016, Vaz Pinto I, De Almeida RR & Martin A (eds.), Lusitanian Amphorae: Production and Distribution, RLAMP 10, Archaeopress, Oxford (464pp).  (Reynolds P – Series Editor).


Selected research activities

‘Analysing Roman Pottery: Archaeological Contexts, Economy and Trade in the Mediterranean’, Invited Course Lecture (May 2016), GRK 878, DFG research training group, Archaeology of pre-modern economies, Institute of Archaeology, Cologne University (Germany).

PhD: Maxine Anastasi.  Roman Malta : ceramics and trade. All Souls College, Oxford. Joint director with Andrew Wilson. Passed January 2016.