Prof. David Kennedy

Winthrop Professor, University of Western Australia and Associate Member of the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

My principal research focuses on the Roman Near East where I have conducted fieldwork since 1976 ranging from survey in the Southern Hauran (Jordan) and the hinterland of Jarash to excavation at Zeugma (Turkey). Of particular interest are the Roman army and military installations, landscape archaeology and Aerial Archaeology. The last of these has stimulated research on other periods from the Neolithic period through the Umayyad to the Ottoman and British, on the archaeology of Saudi Arabia and on 19th century western exploration ‘east of Jordan’.

Founder in 1978 of the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME) and co-director of the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan (AAJ) project since 1997. Recent publications include Gerasa and the Decapolis (2007), Settlement and Soldiers in the Roman Near East (2013) and an eBook Kites in ‘Arabia’ (with R. Banks and P. Houghton) (2014). In progress are books on the Hinterland of Roman Philadelphia, the Umayyad Palace at Muwaqqar and Travel and Travellers East of Jordan in the 19th Century.