Projects

LIVE CAMPAIGNS

The Sutton Hoo Experimental Ship (Woodbridge 2021-)
Funded and executed by the Sutton Hoo Ship's Company a Charity (reg. 1175475) and company limited by guarantee (10377525).
Partners: Woodbridge Town Council, National Trust, Sutton Hoo Society, Woodbridge Riverside Trust
Director of research from August 2021: Prof Martin Carver
Project Manager: Jacq Barnard and 60+ volunteers
Shipwright: Tim Kirk
Advisory Group: The Ship's Company WITAN, comprising 30 academics and shipbuilders
Programme: Build 2018-2025; Trials 2025-2029; on permanent exhibition 2030
Mission: to build a full-scale reconstruction of the ship found under Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo in 1939, based on archaeological evidence, and test its performance under oars and under sail
in rivers and at sea, leading to new knowledge about the earliest English shipbuilders, and new respect for rowing, rivers and river travel.
Contacts
Located at the Longshed, Tide Mill Way, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 1FP
Website: www.saxonship.org
Martin Carver Founder Trustee (martin.carver [at] saxonship.org) 07474080213
Jacq Barnard Project Manager (jab [at] saxonship.org) 07899 778 995

Sicily in Transition AD 600-1300 (Sicily, 2014-23) SICTRANSIT
Funded by European Research Council Project No. 693600
Partners: Universities of York, Rome 'Tor Vergata' and Salento at Lecce
PI: Prof Martin Carver, University of York
Co-Director: Prof Alessandra Molinari
Main Sites: Mazara del Vallo 1997; Castronovo di Sicilia. Field Campaign 2014-2019
The project is now in its final year, dedicated to publication
CONTACT martin.carver [at] york.ac.uk. 074740802123,. +441757289114

PUBLICATIONS Forthcoming
Monograph 1:Alessandra Molinari, Antonino Meo (acd), forthcoming, 2022: Mazara/Mazar: nel ventre dell città medievale (secoli VII-XV), with full English summary (Florence: All'Insegno del Giglio)
Monograph 2: Martin Carver, Alessandra Molinari, Paola Orecchioni (acd), forthcoming, 2022 Castronovo di Sicila: in posto centrale della Sicilia medievale. Scavi e Ricerche 2014-2022 (Florence: All'Insegno del
Giglio)
Monograph 3: Martin Carver (acd) , forthcoming, 2022 Remembering the dead in Medieval Sicily. Archaeological, Bioarchaeological and Biomolecular Studies, 2016-2022 (Florence: All'Insegno del Giglio)
Published Interim Reports
Martin Carver, Alessandra Molinari 2016 Sicily in Transition Research Project. Investigations at Castronovo di Sicilia. Results and Prospects 2015 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2016-352.pdf
Martin Carver, Alessandra Molinari, Veronica Aniceti, Francesca Colangeli, Nicoletta Giannini, Fabio Giovannini, Madeleine Hummler, Claudio F. Mangiaracini, Antonino Meo, Paola Orecchioni 2018 Sicily in
Transition. Interim Report of Investigations at Castronovo di Sicilia 2016 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2018-412.pdf
Martin Carver, Alessandra Molinari, Veronica Aniceti, Claudio Capelli, Francesca Colangeli, Léa Drieu, Girolamo Fiorentino, Fabio Giovannini, Madeleine Hummler, Jasmine Lundy, Antonino Meo, Aurore Monnereau,
Paola Orecchioni, Milena Primavera, Alice Ughi 2019 Sicily in Transition., New Research on Early Medieval Sicily, 2017-2018 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2019-437.pdf
Published research papers
2017 Carver, Martin and Molinari, Alessandra. Ricerche 2016 a Castronovo di Sicilia. Siciliy in Transition (Progetto ERC advance grant 2016-693600) Notizario Archeologico Soprintendenza Palermo, n.23/2017
https://sicilia.academia.edu/NotiziarioArcheologicoSoprintendenzaPalermo
2018 Gelichi, S, Molinari A 2018 (eds) I Contenitori da Trasporto altomedievale e medievale (VIII-XII) secolo nel Mediterraneo. Centro produttori, Contenuti, Retti di Scambio (Atti del Convegno (Roma, 16018 novembre
2017). Published as volume 45 of Archeologia Medievale , pp 9-316.
2018 Léa Drieu, Martin Carver, Oliver E. Craig Commodities carried in amphorae AD 600-1200 - New research from Sicily Archeologia Medievale 45, 269-274
2018 Antonino Meo Anfore, uomini e reti di scambio sul “mare pisano” VIII- XII secolo Archeologia Medievale 45, 219-238
2018 Alessandra Molinari Le anfore medievali come proxy per la storia degli scambi mediterranei tra VIII e XIII secolo? Archeologia Medievale 45, 293-306.
2018 Paola Orecchioni, Claudio Capelli: Considerazioni di sintesi sulle analisi petrografiche di alcuni contenitori anforici di VIII - XII secolo Archeologia Medievale 45, 251-268
2018 Giorgio Rascaglia, Claudio Capelli: Archeologia e archeometria delle anfore da trasporto altomedievali VIII-IX secolo: ripensando i dati da Roma e dal Lazio Archeologia Medievale 45, 205-218
2018 Alessandra Molinari, Martin Carver Insediamenti e cultura materiale nell’area di Castronovo di Sicilia. Secoli VI-XIII in Rosa Maria Bonacasa Carra, Emma Vitale (acd) Scavi, Topografia e Archeologia del
Paesaggio. Studi in Memoria di Fabiola Ardizzone
2 (Antipodes; Palermo)
2019 Alessandra Molinari Sicily from Late Antiquity to Early Middle Ages: Resilience and Disruption, in M. Cau Ontiveros, C. Mas Florit (eds.), Change and Resilience: The Occupation of Mediterranean Islands in
Late Antiquity
Joukowsky Institute Publication 9 Oxford, 2019, pp. 87-110
2019 Martin Carver, Alessandra Molinari and Girolamo Fiorentino: Sicily in Transition: Public Trends and Private Lives through four regimes in Dirk Booms and Peter John Higgs (eds) Sicily: Heritage of the
World
(British Museum Research Publication 222), 120-132
2019 Antonino Meo, Paola Orecchioni Ceramica da cucina a Mazara tra X e XIV secolo. Prima dati dal Progetto Sicily in Transition Giada Molinari, Eleonora Fornelli (acd) Ceramica Ligure e Ceramica Siciliana (Atti
LII Convegno Internazionale della Ceramica Savona)
121-130.
2020 Martin Carver and Alessandra Molinari ‘Sicily and England – Norman transitions compared’ in Emily Winkler, Liam Fitzgerald and Andrew Small (eds) Designing Norman Sicily: Visual Stories of a
Mediterranean Kingdom
(Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, 2020), 133-165.
2020 Anna Maria Grasso, Silvia d’Aquino, Eligio Vacca, Girolamo Fiorentino: Medioevo è innovazione: breve storia della fava (vicia faba. L.) alla luce dei nuovi dati archeobotanici Archaeologia Medievale XLVII
(in corso di stampa)
2020 Léa Drieu, Maxime Rageot, Nathan Wales, Ben Stern, Jasmine Lundy, Maximilian Zerrer, Isabella Gaffney, Manon Bondetti, Cynthianne Spiteri, Jane Thomas-Oates & Oliver E. Craig (2020): Is it possible to
identify ancient wine production using biomolecular approaches?, STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, DOI:10.1080/20548923.2020.1738728
2021 Léa Drieu, Paola Orecchioni, Claudio Capelli, Antonino, Meo, Jasmine Lundy, Viva Sacco, Lucia Arcifa, Alessandra Molinari and Oliver Craig (2021): Chemical evidence for the persistence of wine production
and trade in Early Medieval Islamic Sicily PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA) 118.10 e2017983118
2021 Milena Primavera, Girolamo Fiorentino, Felix Bittman (a cura di) Proceedings of the 18th Congress of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany Lecce 2019 Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Volume 30.1.
2021 Jasmine Lundy, Léa Drieu, Antonino Meo, Viva Sacco, Lucia Arcifa, Elena Pezzini, Veronica Aniceti, Girolamo Fiorentino, Michelle Alexander, Paola Orecchioni, Alessandra Molinari, Martin Carver, Oliver E. Craig
New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily PLOS ONE16(6): e0252225. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252225
2022 Aniceti, Veronica, Umberto Abarella 2022 Who's eating pork? Investigating pig breeding and consumption in Byzantine, Islamic and Norman/Aragonese Sicily (7th -14th c. AD) J. Archaeological Science:
Reports 41, 103299

Previous Field Campaigns

  • Urban archaeology
    York (1973, 1996), Durham (1974), Shrewsbury (1974-5), Stafford (1975-1985), Lichfield (1975), Worcester (1980), Forty French Towns (1983), Castel Seprio (1978-80), English Towns (1987), Italian Towns (1993).

  • Sutton Hoo Research Project (England)
    Field campaign 1983-1993
    Monograph published 1998 (repr. 2000, 2005)
    Final Report published 2005
    Archive available on line at ADS: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/suttonhoo_var_2004/
    Visitor Centre opened 2002 by Seamus Heaney: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-suttonhoo
    For local events including site visits and conferences, see www.suttonhoo.org
    Publications:
    Martin Carver et al 2005 Sutton Hoo a Seventh Century Princely Burial Ground and its context (British Museum) OPEN ACCESS ONLINE
    Martin Carver 2017 The Sutton Hoo Story. Encounters with early England (Woodbridge. Boydell)

  • Tarbat Discovery Programme (Scotland)
    Field Campaign began 1996
    Bulletins and DSRs available on website
    Interim report in Medieval Archaeology 2004.
    Visitor Centre opened 2000 by Prince Charles: http://www.tarbat-discovery.co.uk/
    Online archive at https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/portmahomack_2015/
    Publications:
    Martin Carver, Justin Garner Lahire 2016 Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness. Changing Ideologies in North East Scotland, sixth to sixteenth centuries Society of Antiquaries of Scotland OPEN ACCESS ONLINE

X