School of History, Archaeology and Religion

Projects

We’re working within and across our disciplines on a wide range of engaging, in-depth projects that are advancing knowledge of the past and understanding of the present.

We work in partnership across the wealth of expertise here in Wales and beyond, and collaborate innovatively beyond the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Discover our current projects

Attic Inscriptions Online

Inscriptions on stone are the most important documentary source for the history of the ancient city of Athens and its surrounding region, Attica. This project makes available online the inscriptions of ancient Athens and Attica in English translation.

Baltic paganism, osteology, and new examinations of zooarchaeological evidence

The BONEZ project applies cutting edge archaeological science techniques to explore the economic, environmental, social, and spiritual dimensions of public ritual amongst the last persisting pagan tribal networks in temperate Europe.

The Catacombs of Anubis

Although animal cults are a widely recognised feature of religion in ancient Egypt, little is known about the nature of the catacombs and mummies associated with the temples dedicated to animal gods.

1. Stacked mummy pots, each containing a mummified ibis. South Ibis Catacomb, North Saqqara

Dating the Dead: Chronology and Context at Saqqara's Sacred Animal Necropolis

This is an ambitious project and will to draw together a diverse range of dating and other evidence, thereby filling a gap in our understanding of the development of the animal cults and transforming understanding of them as a vital but hitherto under-researched aspect of ancient society and economy.

An old print including images of fish, birds, plants, animals, humans and a map

Eating Exchanges: Food and Religious Encounter in the Early Modern World

Eating Exchanges investigates the role of food in the encounter between those of different faiths in the early modern world (c. 1570 - c. 1690) and the far-reaching consequences of these interactions.

Feasting networks and resilience at the end of the British Bronze Age

Exploring how communities respond to economic and climatic crisis is key for enhancing understanding of resilience in the past and present.

Feeding the Roman Army in Britain: Animal supply networks on the frontiers

This ambitious, interdisciplinary project will revolutionise our understanding of the Roman army in Britain and, most importantly, the strategies that ensured the successful history of Roman imperialism.

Jewish Country Houses – Objects, Networks, People

Jewish Country Houses – Objects, Networks, People is a 4-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Legacies of Learning: from Turath to Transformation

By exploring the lives of historic Muslim scholars, we are interested in analysing and drawing out principles about the way the Islamic tradition can enable human and educational flourishing.

View of the village of Lembach in Alsace

The Maginot Line

The Maginot Line fortifications on France’s German and Italian frontiers were a marvel of 1930s engineering - they cost over €7 billion in today’s prices.

Rolling green hills and blue sky in the distance.

Making the March: Contesting Lands in the Early Medieval Frontier

During the later first millennium CE the landscape known today as the Welsh March became a contested frontier zone between opposed Welsh and English kingdoms.

Altar 5 from Tikal, Guatemala, depicting the reburial of human skeletal remains at Tikal that were exhumed from their original burial at another site during the Late Classic period (left photo: HJPD, CC BY 3.0; right drawing public domain).

Posthumous Exhumation and Movement of Osteological Remains: An Innovative Iso-Histological Approach to Prehispanic Maya Mortuary Practices

The aim of the PHEMOR project is to reconstruct the posthumous movement of human remains from prehispanic (250 BCE to 1525 CE) Maya sites using an innovative iso-histological approach.

Prison-based Interventions for Muslim Offenders (PRIMO)

Designing, piloting and testing a coherent strategy to maximise the rehabilitative effects of Islam in prison.

South Uist Projects and Environmental Research (Cardiff)

Exploring the history of settlement on the island from its initial occupation through to the clearances.

St David’s Society of Hong Kong / Cymdeithas Dewi Sant Hong Kong documents at the National Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru in Aberystwyth. Photograph by Helena F. S. Lopes

St. David in the East: Welsh Communities in East and Southeast Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This collaborative project investigates histories of Welsh in Asia, highlighting global connections of Welsh culture and identity, and considering wider ramifications of Wales-Asia connections in the past and in the present.

A lady poses for the camera while people dance behind her

We Take Care of Our Own: A Theological Ethnographic Exploration of the Experience of Caregiving in the Context of Dementia Across Two Cultures

This project investigates how the perspectives of an indigenous community and a diaspora community on dementia care can deepen theological understandings and practices of dementia care.

The ZOOarchaeology of Historical CRETE: A Multiscalar Approach to Animals in Ancient Greece - ZOOCRETE

ZOOCRETE adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine the development and resilience of citizen-states in ancient Crete through the lens of communal feasting and food production.

Explore past projects

Art Landscape Transformations: Măgura past and present

Măgura Past and Present is centred around the Romanian village of Măgura and, through the process of scientific and artistic interventions, will gain new insight into the relationships that different groups of people have with their physical environment and associated archaeology.