This year’s BILNAS ANNUAL LECTURE will be delivered by former BILNAS Director, Corisande Fenwick, Professor of Late Antique and Islamic Archaeology at UCL Institute of Archaeology.
About this Event
The Muslim conquests in the 7th century transformed the everyday lives of communities in North Africa in profound ways. Some of these changes are well known, others less so: the appearance of mosques and palaces; the introduction of new crops, agricultural practices and technological innovations in ceramic, glass, metalwork; and the integration of North Africa into a complex trading network that connected the immense Caliphate with an even vaster region from China to the Atlantic. At the same time, though cultural change was slow and regionally varied, a distinctly ‘Islamic cultural package’ emerged. However, much of what we know about this transformative period continues to reflect the experience of rulers and elites, rather than the bulk of the population.
Recent archaeological discoveries in Morocco – the first region to break away from the caliphate –offer a new perspective on this transformative period. This lecture brings together a wealth of new archaeological and scientific evidence from cities and the countryside — from coins, pottery, glass to the movement of raw materials, and exotic goods— to explore how and why rival Islamic states emerged in this region, and how people lived, worked, and traded on the far western frontier of the Caliphate.
About the Speaker
Corisande Fenwick is Professor of Late Antique and Islamic Archaeology at UCL. Her books include Early Islamic North Africa and the co-edited Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology. She currently co-directs several field projects in Morocco (Volubilis, Wadi Draa) and Tunisia (Bulla Regia) and is PI of the ERC-funded project EVERYDAYISLAM: Cultural Change, Everyday Life and State Formation in early Islamic North Africa (600-1000) and Co-I of the AHRC-funded project OasCiv: Making Oasis Civilisation in the Moroccan Sahara. Corisande served on BILNAS Council for 10 years as Council Member, Honorary Secretary (2016-20) and Director (2020-24).
