DR KEN DARK - SATELLITES OVER THE SEA: REINTERPRETING ROMAN & BYZANTINE LANDSCAPES AROUND THE SEA OF GALILIEE

This lecture will discuss recent work by the ‘Sea of Galilee Project, which aims to build on previous site-specific research around the lake by adopting a new perspective on the Roman-period and Byzantine archaeology of the area based on the methods of landscape archaeology. It seeks to understand the extent to which specialised fishing formed the mainstay of local Roman-period economic activity and to investigate the social and economic consequences of this and of Christian pilgrimage in the fourth- to seventh- centuries.

Ken Dark studied archaeology and history at the universities of York and Cambridge and held academic posts at Oxford and Cambridge, before moving to the University of Reading, where he was Director of the Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from 2001-16. Currently Associate Professor in Archaeology and History at Reading, he has directed archaeological fieldwork projects in Israel, Turkey and Britain, and published widely on Roman-period and Byzantine archaeology.

'A Roman-period architectural fragment from the modern village of Migdal' - image courtesy of Ken Dark