Paul Arthur

Paul Arthur FSA, holds the Chair in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Salento in southern Puglia (the heel of Italy) and is currently President of the Italian Society of Medieval Archaeologists (SAMI). Whilst beginning his career as a classical archaeologist, graduating and obtaining his doctorate at the Institute of Archaeology in London, he has since specialised in the archaeology of the Middle Ages and Byzantium. Interests in past settlement systems and economy, the environment and ceramics, have led him to work in England, Israel, Italy, Libya, Turkey and the Ukraine, and to travel even further. He has excavated far and wide, from Fulham, by the banks of the Thames, to Hierapolis in Phrygian Asia Minor, stopping off at Pompeii on the way. He currently directs a major Italian government project on “The Byzantine Heritage of Southern Italy”. Had he not become an archaeologist, he would have become an art historian. He has more than a passing interest in the art nouveau movement, which he also frequently writes and speaks about.