Travels With an Archaeologist ─ Finding a Sense of Place

'You must be very patient', most everyone asserts admiringly on encountering an archaeologist. Patience in the pursuit of history instantly earns consideration. Patience to sift through the soil to discover treasure, from gold to unidentifiable knick-knacks – an educated beachcomber. But, patience does not come into it so much as the chemistry of experiences from being in the company of others as the five senses are provoked and satisfied by the buried unexpected.

Archaeology is about hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching past textures in our time. With these senses, in the company of friends, new places are created from old ones. Travel with archaeologist and writer Richard Hodges as he explores sites across the globe and ponders the relationship of the individual with the past and the present of the past in its ruins, monuments and hidden traces of long-distant worlds and civilisations.

Richard Hodges OBE, is President of The American University of Rome, Italy. He is the editor of the Debates in Archaeology series; and his many publications include The Archaeology of Mediterranean Placemaking (Bloomsbury 2016) and Dark Age Economics (Bloomsbury 2012). He has previously been Scientific Director the Butrint Foundation and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA, and writes widely for magazines.