Paul Reynolds

Paul Reynolds

Universitat de Barcelona

Humanities

Institute of Archaeology-UCL BA (1980) & PhD (1991) (Settlement and Pottery of the Vinalopo Valley (Alicante), AD 400-700), providing a detailed review of ceramics and trade in W Mediterranean ports (published as BAR 588 & 604 in 1993, 1995). Have studied-published Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic ceramics from excavations in Spain (Alicante, Cartagena, Valencia), Roman Syria (Beirut, Chhim, Homs, Basit, Zeugma), Albania (Butrint, Durres), Greece (Athens, Corinth, Thesprotia, Nicopolis, Patras), Bulgaria (Nicopolis, Dichin) and N Africa (Carthage, Utica, Leptis Magna).
Author of Trade in the Western Mediterranean AD 400-700: the ceramic evidence, BAR 604 (1995); Hispania and the Roman Mediterranean, AD 100-700: Ceramics and Trade (2010) and Butrint 6, Volume 3. The Roman and Late Antique Pottery from the Vrina Plain Excavations (2020). Co-editor of the series Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery (Archaeopress, Oxford). 

Research interests

The principal aim of my research is the study of trade networks and economies of the Classical-Late Antique Mediterranean, Black Sea & Atlantic through the definition of regional ceramic typologies and analysis of the regional-long distance distribution of ceramics in major ports (table-wares, amphorae & cooking wares). I am interested in all factors that contributed to the supply of goods: private, state, city, ecclesiastical & administrative structures. Other interests include Hellenistic-Roman cuisine-cultural interaction in the Roman East; typologies and archaeometry of local ceramics in the Roman-Byzantine East; analysis of organic residues in amphorae (Spanish Ministry RACA-Med I and II projects); typologies, archaeometry, dating, function of Islamic pottery in Utica and N Africa (ongoing Barakat Trust project).

Selected publications

- Salinas E, Reynolds P & Pradell T 2023, ‘Continuity and innovation in glazed tableware consumption in North Africa from the Fatimid to Zirid periods: the case of Islamic Utica’. In F. Colangeli and V. Sacco (eds,), Le Forme del Vetro, Tecnologie a confronto. Produzioni vitree e invetriate in Sicilia, Italia peninsulare e al-Andalus tra IX e XII secolo, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 135, 2, 285-300.
- Bonifay M, Cau MA & Reynolds P (eds.) 2023, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 19, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2, 974. In Rizzo MS, Parello MC, Giannitrapani M & Caminecci, V (eds.), LRCW 6. Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry. Land and Sea: Pottery Routes.
- Bonifay M, Cau MA & Reynolds P (eds.), 'Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 18'. In Peeters D, Shaping Regionality in Socio-Economic Systems: Late Hellenistic - Late Roman Ceramic Production, Circulation, and Consumption in Boeotia, Central Greece (c. 150 BC–AD 700), Archaeopress, Oxford, 394.

Selected research activities

Lectures
Invited Speaker. ‘Beirut and the West: Comparing western amphora imports and distribution networks beyond Greece and the Aegean’. Workshop, Living and consuming as a westerner: Central and western Mediterranean goods and peoples in Greece and Asia Minor (5th century BC to 7th century A). Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAW), 15-16th February 2023.
Invited speaker. ‘Changing maritime networks: the circulation of pottery and other goods over the 5th to 7th centuries’. Workshop, GlassRoutes: Systems of exchange in the medieval world, Les Treilles (Tourtour, France), 9th - 14th October 2023.
Research stays
Carthage (Tunisia) (June 2023)
Pompeii (Italy) (July 2023)
Ephesus (Turkey)
(July 2023)
Co-directed PhD awarded to Nikoula Kougiá (University of Patras) (December 2023) on Pottery workshops, typologies and archaeometry in Roman Patras.