Archaeology (Research): The Transformation of the Roman World

The Transformation of the Roman World is a research master’s specialisation that will introduce you to advanced studies of Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Roman and Post-Roman times (c. 300-900 AD).

Students will participate in the current research projects of the Faculty of Archaeology, relating to the Merovingian and Carolingian world in North-Western Europe, the Byzantine Period in the Mediterranean and the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods in (southern) Jordan.
Opportunities to participate in the fieldwork of these projects and excursions will be offered. Moreover, the new Leiden Centre for Late Antique and Early Medieval Studies provides excellent opportunities to engage in multidisciplinary research of the Transformation of the Roman World.

The general focus of our research and teaching is ‘economics’. We analyse the economic recovery of North-Western Europe in Merovingian and Carolingian times, exchange networks in the Mediterranean on the basis of production and distribution of pottery, and agrarian innovation and water management in Jordan. Our expertise also includes the study of burial rites, the fate of Roman towns in the early Middle Ages, and the study of Christian centres.

Students will be confronted with the whole gamma of research activities, from digging to pottery studies to theoretical reflections on economy and exchange. The challenge to be dealt with is to integrate research on North-Western Europe with that on the Mediterranean and to discover how these worlds were connected in an early medieval global system reaching from the Indian Ocean to Ireland and Scandinavia.

Track leader:
Prof. dr. Frans Theuws