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The University of Southampton
ArchaeologyPart of Humanities

Archaeology and Geology, Deserts and Harbours

Published: 4 March 2016
David Peacock Pomerance Award, 2012
David Peacock receiving the Pomerance Award medal from the Archaeological Institute of America, 2012

A Celebration of the Life and Career of Professor David Peacock.

This film is a recording of a day held on March 4th, 2016, to celebrate the life and career of Professor David Peacock (1939-2015), when his family, friends and colleagues came together at the Society of Antiquaries, London, to hear short talks by some of those who knew and worked with him, and who were influenced by his work. The presentations reflect on his career as an archaeologist who used his geological training to establish where many different types of pottery and stone artefacts were produced, overturning many established ideas about their distributions, and therefore of the trade or other exchange systems that had taken them to where they were found. He became interested in how modern potters using traditional methods could illuminate understanding of how pots might have been made and marketed in the past. Transferring his attention mainly to north Africa and Egypt, he worked first on amphorae and then on stone quarries and ports. His identification of the quarries from which imperial porphyry marble had been extracted was an important contribution to the history of the Roman Empire, but he also studied the more everyday quernstones that were essential for turning cereals into flour, from the Neolithic period up to modern times, and how they had been quarried, shaped and distributed.

For his colleagues, friends, family and students, with short talks by some of those who worked with him and for him.

Friday, March 4th, at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London.

Programme

Introduction by Professor Simon Keay, University of Southampton

Pottery

Professor Michael Fulford, University of Reading

Professor Jeroen Poblome, University of Leuven

Drs Michel Bonifay, CNRS/MMSH, Université d’Aix-Marseille and Dr Claudio Capelli, Università degli Studi di Genova

Dr Ian Whitbread, University of Leicester

Professor Richard Hodges, President, American University of Rome

Dr Emilie Sibbeson, Senior Lecturer, Canterbury Christ Church University, who will introduce the book of essays prepared as a tribute to David, Insight from Innovation

Quernstones, millstones, marble and quarries

Professor Valerie Maxfield, University of Exeter

Professor David Hinton, University of Southampton

Emeritus Professor Wilfried Van Rengen, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Dr Anna Gutiérrez, Université de Bordeaux Montaigne

Dr Rebecca Bridgman, Birmingham Museums Trust

Ports, harbours and deserts

Dr Roberta Tomber, British Museum

Dr Elizabeth Bloxam, University College London

Professor Stephanie Moser, University of Southampton

Dr Andrew Peacock, University of St Andrews

To commemorate David’s long association with the Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, a fund for the support of its postgraduate students is to be launched. Anyone who would like to contribute is asked to contact David Hinton (dah5@soton.ac.uk).

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