“I recently obtained my PhD in Archaeology in the Anthropology Department presenting a dissertation involving the use of geospatial techniques in the study of people’s movement across foreign landscapes and the identification of commercial pharaonic routes connecting Egypt to eastern Sudan. The study of such routes aimed to infer the development of complexity in Egypt and the involvement of the state in long-distance trade. My dissertation provides a preliminary predictive model of movement across the desert and navigation along the Red Sea coast based on geomorphology, climate, ancient texts, and historical information. Said model has the potential to identify areas of archaeological interest contributing to the protection of the archaeological evidence threatened by the illegal activities which are increasing in these two countries. More broadly I investigate the relationship between people and landscapes, examining people’s migrations across land and sea. My research interest is in understanding people’s interaction with landscapes.”
“Thanks to the ASPR Term Time Funding, I was able to spend the semester in Italy to research the historical archives of the Italian Air Force and the Genio Militare in Rome which contain maps, aerial photography as well as travel logs, and journals with descriptions of local people and places, to find the recording of ancient structures, rock art inscriptions, and traces of historical paths. During the colonial era, the Italian colony of Eritrea and Abyssinia included Kassala and its hinterland, and the colony gained its independence in 1936. The material produced during this colonial period, in particular the aerial photography, the recording of water sources and desert tracks, were crucial for the geospatial analyses I performed in my dissertation.”