Archaeologist and cultural studies scholar working on how communities in medieval Central and Inner Asia negotiated overlapping identities. Particularly interested in how these negotiations were translated into the material record, and how digital and spatial methods can help make sense of scattered legacy evidence.
Current research
Materialising Entangled Identities: A Digital Archaeological Study of East Syriac Christianity in 13th–14th Century Turco-Mongol Central Eurasia
This project explores how the spatial organisation and material culture of East Syriac Christian practice among Turco-Mongol communities reflect the negotiation of overlapping identities — and how digital methods can help reconstruct these processes from fragmentary, dispersed evidence.
The case study areas are the Semirechye/Zhetisu region of southeastern Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan, and central Inner and Outer Mongolia. Methods include spatial and network analysis, supported by a CIDOC CRM-structured PostgreSQL/PostGIS database seeking to bring dispersed legacy data into a single analysable form. The analysis draws on practice-centred and entanglement approaches to material culture, alongside a critical reading of Silk Roads scholarship and its inherited categories.
Recent talks
- Aug 2026 Archaeological Evidence of Entangled Identities: Rethinking East Syriac Christianity in the Turco-Mongol World of 13th–14th Century Central Eurasia 14th Symposium Syriacum, Bucharest
- Apr 2026 View from the Edges of the Sea: Turco-Mongol Perspectives on the Medieval Mediterranean Il mare comune, Pontificia Facoltà Teologica di Sicilia, Palermo
- Feb 2024 Cosmopolitanism and Minority Rights: Moving Beyond the Protection of Ethno-Religious Minorities in the Middle East 4th International Congress of the PLURIEL Network, Abu Dhabi
Previous research
- 2025 Entangled Identities: An Archaeological Exploration of Syriac Christianity in the Turco-Mongol World of 13th–14th Century Central Eurasia MA dissertation, King's College London (Distinction)
- 2014 Changes in Early Islamic Glass Assemblages from the Levant and their Socio-Political Context BSc dissertation, University College London (First)
Education
- From 2026 Archaeology (postgraduate)University of the Highlands and Islands
- 2022–2025 MA Global Cultures — Distinction King's College London, Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities
- 2014–2016 Graduate coursework, Middle Eastern Studies & SociologyUniversity of Chicago, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
- 2011–2014 BSc Archaeology — First Class University College London, Institute of Archaeology Seton Lloyd Memorial Prize for Western Asiatic Archaeology
Fieldwork
- 2025 Tsagaan Sumiĭn Balgas, Orkhon Valley — Excavation of a Uyghur urban site and cemeteryInstitute of Archaeology, Mongolian Academy of SciencesAmerican Center for Mongolian StudiesACMS Fieldwork Fellowship
- 2013 Ecomuseo Cap de Cavalleria, Menorca — Late Roman necropolis, bioarchaeology, GIS databaseSanisera Archaeology Institute
- 2012 Marco Gonzalez, Ambergris Caye — Ceramic, faunal, and environmental find processing at a coastal Maya site; community outreachUniversity of North Carolina WilmingtonUCL Institute of Archaeology
- 2012 West Dean, West Sussex — Excavation and find processing at an Iron Age hillfortUCL Institute of Archaeology