Material Worlds Research Centre

Today saw the launch of the Material Worlds Research Centre 🎉 A range of disciplines including archaeology, engineering and museum studies joined to discuss how they can get involved! We look forward to seeing what collaborations and projects the centre brings ✨

Yesterday we had an exciting mid-masterclass excursion to Whetstone Prehistoric Farm 🌾 Thanks to The Prehistoric Workshop team for guiding us through flint knapping, hafting and much more! We then rounded the day of hard work up with some grub 🍽️ @ArchAncHistLeic

We followed up day one with a super interesting and anarchical talk from @clmorgan 🗣️ Sharing with us their own ideas of what archaeologists can do, we heard fascinating approaches to worldmaking and worldbuilding 🏗️Thanks again Colleen! @BlackTrowel

Today is the first day of our annual Material Worlds masterclass! ✨ We have taken a deep dive exploration into papers submitted from members of our centre and talked all things theory 🧐🪨Thank you to our day’s convenor @clmorgan for navigating our conversations!

Some of us are still recovering from the great day our members had yesterday 🪓 Lots of materially-inclined conversations and collaborations coming out of it! Thanks to all involved and for @HamishDarrah for showing us the ropes… or woods! 🪵

This evening was the inaugural lecture of our one and only professor Ollie Harris @OJTH 🎓 We are super proud of him and glad we finally know what archaeology actually is 🧐🎉 @ArchAncHistLeic @uniofleicester

A timely stocking filler or simply a great read… be sure to check out this new book by some of the members of our research centre👇👇👇

Congratulations to our very own @OJTH 🎉

Great opportunity to join the department and get involved with some materially-inclined thinking 💭 👇👇👇

… and we’re live! 🎉 Start your week off right by checking out our website for all things Material Worlds related 👇 le.ac.uk/research/centr… @uniofleicester @ArchAncHistLeic

Main course vanished in a flash but for dessert we had this gorgeous cheesecake doused in honey! A firm favourite of the team with promises that the Roman recipe will be utilised in the future 😋 @ArchAncHistLeic #Roman #cooking

For starters we have… fresh sour dough with Hypotrimma (a lovely fig dip), melon with a mint dressing and prawns with a Horace’ Oenogarum (vinaigrette) 🍞🍵🍈🦐 which do you fancy trying? 🧑‍🍳 @ArchAncHistLeic #Roman #cooking

Day 2 of the masterclass ✨ Today we are having a go at cooking following some Roman recipes 🧑‍🍳 watch this space to see how our lunch turns out! #cooking #historicrecipe @ArchAncHistLeic

📣 Book alert! 'Vikings in the Mediterranean', edited by Neil Price, Carsten Jankhe and myself is finally out! 🎉 Massive thanks to the authors + @NorwInst & the other Scandi institutes & the Viking Phenomenon Project for funding/support. Book launch in Athens in Sept!🤩

To round off the first day of the masterclass we had an amazing talk from Dr Eva Mol! Eva discussed her work on radical alterity and disruption when looking at the Roman world, with an interesting thought activity involving colouring pencils ✏️ Thanks to Eva for leading day 1!

We’ve had a great first day of discussions for our annual Material Worlds Masterclass 🔎 An emoji summary of some of the papers we have explored: 🛖🚶, 🫄, 🪦❌🪦,🥚@bodypoliticsERC @ArchAncHistLeic

We have had an exciting day with @bodypoliticsERC learning how to use Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) on some of the objects our members work with! Thanks to @martaguardamino for leading the workshop and equipping us with new #RTI skills! @ArchAncHistLeic ✨

Today we are having fun with Reflectance Transformation Imaging and learning useful new skills at the @MaterialWorldRC and #BodyPoliticsERC sponsored #RTI Workshop w/ wizard @martaguardamino 🪦💡📸 @ArchAncHistLeic #Workshop #ArchaeologySkills #ImagingTechnology #MaterialWorlds

Great photos taken by @DA_Osborne of our smelting workshop this week!

Some snaps from the first day of our smelting workshop!

Off to an exciting start on day 1 of our smelting workshop getaway @ChesterHouse_UK led by @ancientcraftUK ⛏️ 🪨 we should have some bronze at the end of this!