Dr Louise Steel BA, PhD
Contact Details
School of Archaeology, History and AnthropologyTel: 01570 424794 (294)
E-mail: l.steel@trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk
Campus
Lampeter CampusJob Title
Lecturer in Archaeology
Role in the University
Lecturer in Archaeology
Programme Co-ordinator for BA in Ancient History and Archaeology
Programme Coordinator for MA in Civilisations of the Mediterranean
Teaching
I am also the convener for the following modules:
POSTGRADUATE
Introduction to Contemporary Archaeology
Archaeology of the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Landscapes, Seascapes and Skyscapes
Greeks and Phoenicians in the Mediterranean
Art and Representation in the Ancient Near East
Archaeology of the Near East
LEVELS 5 and 6
Bronze Age Society
Text and Society
Thinking Through Archaeology
LEVEL 4
Pharaohs, Phoenicians and Peoples of the Sea
Themes and TheoriesBackground
PhD University of London (1993)
BA University of Liverpool (1988)
Member of
British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology
American Schools of Oriental Research
Peer Review Panel, AHRC
Academic Interests
Main Research Interests
- Late Bronze Age Cyprus
- Mycenaean imported pottery in the East Mediterranean
- Representations (Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus)
- Landscape and identity in Bronze Age Gaza
I am currently directing excavations in the village of Arediou-Vouppes, Cyprus. This is a Late Bronze Age farming settlement with evidence for trading contacts with Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant. Between 1996 and 2000 I co-directed the Gaza Research Project with Dr J. Clarke (UEA) and Dr M. Sadeq (Department of Antiquities, Gaza). This involved survey of old city of Gaza and excavations at al-Moghraqa.
My PhD thesis examined burial practices in Early Iron Age Cyprus. My ongoing research interests in Cyprus have involved work on the Late Bronze Age ceramic assemblages at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios and Maroni-Tsaroukkas. I have also studied Cypriot imports to the southern Levant, at Deir el-Balah and Tell Batash. My interests in the household use of ceramics is now proving beneficial in relation to my current fieldwork at Arediou-Vouppes, where a fascinating insight into the domestic culture of a rural community is beginning to emerge.
My main research interest is material culture studies – specifically the consumption of pottery and the renegotiation of meaning encoded in material culture through cross-cultural exchange. In particular I have been working on Mycenaean pottery exported to the East Mediterranean (Cyprus, the Levant and Egypt), to examine the cultural and intellectual consequences of this exchange (how specific items of material culture are incorporated and re-consumed within new cultural contexts ).
One aspect of this work has been a re-assessment of feasting practices in Cyprus and Mycenaean Greece. I am also interested in the application of anthropological studies of art to ancient representations. My fieldwork in Gaza has led me to explore the use of landscape in the creation of identity.
I am currently the Honorary Secretary for BANEA.
Recent research students under Louise's supervision have worked on topics such as Cycladic Figurines, Narratives of Collapse in the East Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age, and Examining the Minoan-Mycenaean World from the Symbolism of Homer’s Odyssey.
Publications
BOOKS
2004 Cyprus Before History. From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the Bronze Age. London: Duckworth Publishing
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOOKS
2008 Imported Mycenaean, Minoan and Cypriot Pottery and Local Imitations. Pp. 122-31 in T. Dothan, Deir el-Balah: Uncovering an Egyptian Outpost in Canaan from the Time of the Exodus. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum.
2007 Egypt and the Mediterranean World. Pp. 459-75 in T. Wilkinson (ed.), The Egyptian World. London: Routledge.
2006 Cypriot and Mycenaean Pottery. Chapter 3, pp.151-72, in N. Panitz-Cohen and A. Mazar, Timnah Tel Batash III. The Finds from the Second Millennium BCE. QEDEM 45. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Old City Press.
ARTICLES (peer reviewed)
2010 Late Cypriot Ceramic Production: Hetararchy or Hierarchy? Pp. 106-16 in L. Maguire and D. Bolger (eds), The Development of Pre-State Communities in the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honour of Edgar Peltenburg. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
2009 Creation and Expression of Identity in Cyprus at the End of the Late Bronze Age. Pp. 154-175 in C. Gallou, M. Georgiadis, G.M. Muskett (eds), DIOSCURI. Studies presented to W.G. Cavanagh and C.B. Mee on the Anniversary of their 30-Year Joint Contribution to Aegean Archaeology. Oxford: BAR IS 1889.
2009 Exploring Regional Settlement on Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age: the Rural Hinterland. Pp. 135-45 in I. Hein (ed.), The Formation of Cyprus in the 2nd Millennium BC. Studies in Regionalism During the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
2008 Survey at Arediou Vouppes (Lithosouros): A Late Bronze Age Agricultural Settlement on Cyprus. A Preliminary Analysis of the Material Culture Assemblages.Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 351: 9-37. (with C. McCartney)
2007 Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware from Kalavasos. Pp. 179-190 in I. Hein (ed.), The Lustrous Wares of Late Bronze Age Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. (with A. South)
2006 Women in Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting. In E. Rystedt and B. Wells (eds), Pictorial Pursuits. Figurative Painting on Mycenaean and Geometric Pottery. Stockholm: Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae 3, LIII, 47-55.
2004 Egyptian ‘Funerary Cones’ from el-Moghraqa, Gaza. The Antiquaries Journal 84: 319-33. (with W.P. Manley, J. Clarke, M. Sadeq)
2004 A Goodly Feast…A Cup of Mellow Wine: Feasting in Bronze Age Cyprus. Pp. 161-80 in J. Wright (ed.), in The Mycenaean Feast. Hesperia 73/2.
2004 A Reappraisal of the Distribution, Context and Function of Mycenaean Pottery in Cyprus. Pp. 69-85 in J. Balensi, J.-Y. Monchambert, S. Müller-Celka (eds), La Céramique Mycénienne entre l’Egée et le Levant. Table Rond à la Mémoire de Vronwy Hankey. Travaux de la Masion de l’Orient, Lyon.
2004 Gaza Research Project. Report of 1999 and 2000 Seasons at Moghraqa. Levant 36: 37-88. (with J. Clarke, M. Sadeq, B. Manley).
2004 Gaza Research Project: 1998 Survey of the Old City of Gaza. Levant 36: 31-6. (J. Clarke, M. Sadeq)
2002 Wine, Women and Song: Drinking Ritual in Cyprus During the Late Bronze Age. Pp. 105-19 in D. Bolger and N. Serwint (eds), Engendering Aphrodite: Women and Archaeology in Ancient Cyprus. ASOR Archaeological reports 7/CAARI Monographs 3. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research.
2002 Consuming Passions: A Contextual Study of the Consumption of Mycenaean Pottery at Tell el-‘Ajjul. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15/1: 25-54.
2001 The British Museum and the Invention of the Cypriot Late Bronze Age. Pp. 160-7 in V. Tatton-Brown (ed.), Cyprus in the Nineteenth Century A.D. Fact, Fancy and Fiction. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
2001 The White Slip Sequence at Kalavasos. Pp. 65-74 in V. Karageorghis (ed.), The White Slip Ware of Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Vienna: Austrian Academy. (with A. South)
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENCYCLOPAEDIA
In press Late Bronze Age Cyprus. In M. Steiner and A. Killebrew (eds), Oxford Handbook of the Ancient Levant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2010 Cyprus. Pp. 804-19 in E. Cline (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Ancient Aegean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (in press)
2006 Cyprus; East Greece; Euboia; Human Sacrifice; Lefkandi. Pp. 249, 295-7, 331-2; 446; 510 in G. Shipley, J. Vanderspoel, D. Mattingley, L. Foxhall (eds), The Cambridge Dictionary of Classical Civilisations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2004 Knossos. Chapter 5.14.1 in P. Bogucki and P.J. Crabtree (eds.), Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. - A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Princeton University and New York University: Scribners.
2001 Cyprus; Philistines (Sea Peoples). Pp. 128-29, 391 in A. Negev and S. Gibson (eds), Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land. Continuum: New York – London.
Additional Information
Invited lectures & Seminars
2008 Exploring the Cypriot Hinterland: New Light on the Rural Communities of Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Ancient Levant Workshop, University College London
2008 Exploring Regional Settlement on Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age. Regionalism in Bronze Age Cyprus Workshop, Cyprological Congress, Nicosia
2007 Production and consumption of wine in Bronze Age Cyprus. Wine in Ancient Greece and Cyprus (Ikaria). Wiener Laboratory, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
2006 Hinterlands and Hinterseas: Resource use in Crete and Cyprus. Parallel Lives (Nicosia): Cyprus University & the British School at Athens.
2005 Fieldwork at Arediou-Vouppes: Exploring a Bronze Age rural community on Cyprus. Metals in Antiquity: Mining, Production and Trade seminar series, at the University of Swansea, Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology
2005 Identity in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Keynote speaker at the Postgraduate Symposium on Cypriot Archaeology, University of Reading
2004 Keynote speaker, Colloquium Celebrating Cyprus: in Honour of Constandinos Leventis, the Hellenic Society and Society of Classical Studies, University of London: Recent Developments in Cypriot Archaeology
2004 Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware from Kalavasos. The Lustrous Wares of Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences
2004 Rethinking the Vounous bowl: anthropological perspectives on ancient art. Papers in honour of Trevor Watkins, University of Edinburgh
2004 Heroes in the landscape Mycenaean Greece and its Survival in Later Greek Memory. Cardiff Archaeological Society
2002 Cypriot Drinking Traditions and the Adaptation of Mycenaean Drinking Ritual. The Mycenaean Feast: an archaeological colloquium, AIA meeting, Philadelphia.
2000 Céramique mycénienne en contexte funéraire à Ougarit. Le cas du vase a étrier. Séminaire de recherche, Maison de l’Orient, Universitaire de Lyon II.
2000 Women in Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting. Colloquium on Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting, Athens, Swedish Institute of Archaeology
Contribution to Collaborative Research Projects
1998-1999 Hebrew University of Jerusalem: ceramic specialist, excavations at Tell Batash, Israel
1998-1999 Hebrew University of Jerusalem: ceramic specialist, excavations at Deir el-Balah, Gaza
1995-1998 University of Reading: ceramic specialist, excavations at Maroni Tsaroukkas, Cyprus
1993 Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens: chemical characterisation of Cypriot Iron Age Pottery
1990-2000 Brandeis University: ceramic specialist, excavations at Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios, Cyprus