Elizabeth Fentress
Elizabeth Barringer Fentress (born 30 October 1948) is a Roman archaeologist who specialises in Italy and North Africa.
Biography
Fentress was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1969 Latin), University College London (MA 1974 Etruscan and Roman Archaeology), St Hugh's College, Oxford (DPhil 1979 Roman Archaeology, The Economic Effects of the Roman Army on Southern Numidia).
She has been Visiting Professor at University College London (2007-2012), Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (2010) and Mellon Professor at the American Academy in Rome (1996–99).
She is President of the International Association of Classical Archaeology and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. She set up Fasti Online in 2003, an international database of Mediterranean archaeological excavation, winner in 2013 of the first Archaeological Institute of America Award for Outstanding Digital Archaeology.
She is married to James Fentress, an anthropologist and historian.
Scholarship
Her primary concentration has been on the application of archaeology to history of the longue durée in both the Italian peninsula and the countries of North Africa. Her work has focused on social and economic aspects of Roman landscapes of all periods, with special regard to the interaction between Roman and non-Roman peoples at their points of contact in areas such as slave markets, the limes, and urban areas. She is also a leader in the application of open-area, single-context stratigraphic excavation and intensive survey techniques, and she has directed or co-directed the following survey and excavation projects:
- Albegna Valley Survey, Italy (with M. Grazia Celuzza) 1979-84
- Setif, Algeria (with A. Mohamedi) 1979-85
- Cosa, Italy 1990-97[1]
- Jerba, Tunisia (with R. Holod and A. Drine) 1996-2001[2]
- Volubilis, Morocco (with G. Palumbo and H. Limane) 2000-5
- S. Sebastiano at Alatri (with Caroline Goodson, M. Laird, S. Leone)
- Villa Magna, Italy 2006-2010[3]
- Utica, Tunisia (with F. Ghozzi, J. Quinn and A. Wilson) 2010-
Publications
Numidia and the Roman Army (1979)
Fouilles de Setif 1977-1983 (1991)
(with Michael Brett) The Berbers (1996)
Romanization and the City, Creation, Transformations and Failures (2000)
(with A. Carandini, F. Cambi and M. Grazia Celuzza) Paesaggi d'Etruria tra l'Albegna et la Fiora (2002)
Cosa V: An intermittent town (2003)
(with M. Laird, S. Leone, C. Goodson) Walls and Memory: the Abbey of San Sebastiano at Alatri (2005)
(with R. Holod and A. Drine) An Island through time: Jerba Studies volume I (2009)
(with Hendrik Dey) The Spaces of European Monasticism (2011)
(with Patrice Cressier) La Céramique Islamique Maghrébine du haut Moyen Age (2011)
