Professor Anna Leone is a leading authority on North African archaeology and heritage protection. Her work is driven by her fascination with North Africa and for understanding societal transitions and evolutions in the ancient world.
How has North Africa’s dominant religion transitioned from Paganism to Christianity and later to Islam? This is one of the questions Professor Anna Leone, from our Department of Archaeology, has dedicated 25 years to answering.
She is driven by a passion for transitional periods and the evolution of the Mediterranean world following the fall of the Roam Empire.
Anna has led multiple excavations across North Africa and written extensively exploring topics from Classical cities in Late Antiquity, to rural landscapes and Christian influence in the region.
She is currently leading a Leverhulme-funded project investigating Byzantine military strategy in the region, in collaboration with the Institut National du Ptrimoine de Tunisies.
As part of this work Anna is directing the excavation of a 9th century Ribāt (coastal fort) at Iunci, 20km from Sfax on the Tunisian coast.
Ribāts were not just military installations, but also spiritual, intellectual and defensive centres.
Through this work Anna and the project team are gaining understanding of strategic military and cultural dynamics during the Byzantine period. The team includes Durham University colleagues Professor Dan Lawrence, Dr Tommaso Giuliodoro and Dr Nehemie Strupler. Their study of this period of profound regional transformation, as Arab expansion accelerated, also looks at the impact of climate change on coastal sites.
Anna is also a leading figure in work to protect tangible and intangible heritage – applying her practical archaeological expertise in a contemporary context.
This work includes understanding the effects of climate change on cultural preservation and how to protect heritage in periods of unrest, including warfare.
Anna is currently leading a project in Tataouine, southern Tunisia providing training to 15 Libyan and Tunisian heritage professionals. The training covers techniques including drone mapping and 3D modelling and building condition assessments to aid heritage conservation effort of the unique heritage of Tataouine.
This innovative work will culminate in Tataouine's first interactive museum: The Centre for the Promotion of the Heritage of the Tataouine Region
Alongside this, Anna is also leading a project in Nafusa, Libya, funded by the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage. Here her work is focusing on documenting and evaluating heritage sites affected by conflict.
After earning her degree in Classics from the University of Turin and a postgraduate diploma in Archaeology at La Sapienza in Rome, Anna relocated to the UK and earned her PhD from the University of Leicester.
Following research positions at Leicester and Oxford universities, she found her academic home at Durham University in 2004. Here she has continued to expand her research work and nurture the next generation of researchers.
In recognition of her expertise and leadership, Professor Leone has recently been elected Director of the British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS), one of the 9 prestigioue British International Research Institutes funded by the British Academy
In this role, Anna will lead BILNAS's activities and foster collaborations between British and North African scholars across multiple disciplines.
It is a fitting role for someone whose lifelong love for the historically rich region of North Africa shows no signs of wavering.
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