Louise Steel

Professor Near Eastern Archaeology
Louise Steel Headshot

Background

Louise Steel is an archaeologist with an interest in the material world and interconnections in the East Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. She mainly works in Cyprus and has also excavated in Gaza. Her more recent research focuses on the New Materialities, exploring people’s relationship with matter. Louise works in the UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES hub at UWTSD, examing how knowledge and expertise from outside academia might be harnessed to help respond to the myriad problems people are facing in the 21st century and attempting to identify local solutions to global issues. 

Specialist Subjects

  • Archaeology (Bronze Age Cyprus Aegean and Near East)
  • Archaeological Theory
  • New Materialisms
  • Cultural Heritage and Climate Change

Professional and/or Research Experience

Louise has more than 30 years experience researching and lecturing on the archaeology of the East Mediterranean. She has directed fieldwork at al Moghraqa (Gaza) and Aredhiou (Cyprus) and has worked as pottery specialist at Kalavasos (Cyprus) and on the Cypriot pottery from Deir el Balah and Tell Batash. Her primary interests are people’s relationship with the material world and how this was entangled in their daily lived experiences, intercultural relations in the East Mediterranean and ancient representations.

Louise is Director of Research in the UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES UK hub at UWTSD, which advocates transdisciplinary approaches to Sustainability Science. Her recent research examines the interface between climate change and cultural heritage. As the PI of Coastal TALES (working with colleagues in TCD and ASU) she is investigating the role that intangible heritage, traditional knowledges and practices might play in helping northern coastal populations to adapt to the changing climate.

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons) University of Liverpool
  • PhD University of London

Languages Spoken

English, French, Greek

Professional Membership or Roles

AHRC International Peer Review College
Editorial Board Near Eastern Archaeology
Series Editor, Materialities in Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Wales Press

Academic Teaching

External Recognition or Rewards

Senior Fellow HEA

Link to Orcid Profile

ORCID Research profile

Professional Publications

  • 2025
  • Creative Expression: Prehistoric Figurines from Cyprus. Pp. 109-130 in D. Candelora and S. Steadman (eds) A Cultural History of Gender in Early Civilisations. London: Bloomsbury.
  • Identifying a Late Cypriot Rural House: Re-Examining Building 1 at Aredhiou Vouppes. Pp. 157-69 in J. Clarke and D. Baird (eds) Prehistoric Anatolia and Cyprus. Studies in Honour of Ian A. Todd. SIMA 159. Jonsered: P. Åströms Förlag.
  • 2024
  • Earthy Matters: Exploring Human Interactions with Earth, Soil and Clay, L. Steel and L. Attala (eds). Cardiff: University of Wales Press
  • 2023
  • Plants Matter: Exploring the Becomings of Plants and Humans, L. Attala and L. Steel (eds). Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  • BRIDGES Coalition Project Mapping of Humanities-led Sustainability Science, L.Attala, L. Steel, L .Oosterbeck, S. Hartman and D. Tsimprikidou (eds), UNESO-MOST BRIDGES Coalition, UWTSD. https://bridges.earth/2023/08/bridges-coalition-project-mapping/
  • Exploring the Aesthetic of Red Polished Figurative Art: The Beautifully Made...Made Beautiful. Pp. 193-202 in Y. Voskos, E. Mantzorani, D. Kloukinas (eds) Prehistoric Lifeways in Cyprus from the Early Holocene to the Middle Bronze Age, SIMA 155.
  • Connecting Communities: Agency and Social Interactions in Pre- and Protohistoric Cyprus. Pp. 281-90 in T. Bürge and L. Recht (eds) Dynamics and Developments of Social Structures and Networks in Pre- and Protohistoric Cyprus. London: Routledge.
  • Exploring the Biography of Gaming Stones at Aredhiou, Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age. Near Eastern Archaeology 86(3): 186-95.
  • Enkomi and Egypt: Exploring the Third Space in Cyprus. In C. Langer and U. Matić (eds) Postcolonial Theory in Egyptology: Applications and Potentials. Special Issue: Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress.
  • Mycenaean Pottery from the Cypriot Hinterland: Luxuries, Commodities or Oddities? In A.-L. d’Agata and P. Pavúk (eds) The Lady of Pottery: Ceramic Studies Presented to Penelope A. Mountjoy in Acknowledgement of Her Outstanding Scholarship. SMEA NS, Supplement 3, 179-205.2019 Body Matters: Exploring the Materiality of the Human Body, L. Attala and L. Steel (eds). Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  • 2021
  • Agencement, Matter Flows and Itinerary of Object in the Bronze Age East Mediterranean: A New Materialities Approach to Globalization. Pp. 81-102 in S. Autiero and M. Cobb (eds) Globalization and Transculturality from Antiquity to the Pre-Modern World. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003096269-4.
  • Beyond the Thingification of Worlds. New Materialisms for the Archaeologist (with E. Govier). Journal of Material Culture 26(3): 298-317. DOI:10.1177/13591835211025559
  • Hospitality or Heterotopia: What Happened in Room 103 at Arediou? Pp. 105-18 in Z. Chovanec and W. Crist (eds) All Things Cypriot: Studies on Ancient Environment, Technology, and Society in Honor of Stuart Swiny. ASOR publications, Boston.
  • Inscribing Bodies in Bronze Age Cyprus. Pp. 29-44 in N. Laneri (ed.) The Sacred Body: Materializing the Divine through Human Remains in Antiquity. Material Religion in Antiquity, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
  • 2020
  • Feats of Clay: Considering the Materiality of Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Sustainability 12. Special Issue: Exploring Materiality in the Bronze Age. DOI: http://doi.org/10.3390/su12176942
  • “Little Women”: Gender, Performance, and Gesture in Mycenaean Female Figurines. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101161
  • Transforming Landscapes: Exploring the Creation of a Sacred Landscape in Northeast Cyprus at the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Pp. 121-31 in G.F. Chiai and R. Hauessler (eds) Sacred Landscapes: Creation, Manipulation, Transformation. Oxford: Oxbow.
  • 2019
  • Body Matters: Exploring the Materiality of the Human Body. L. Steel and L. Attala (eds), Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  • 2018
  • Another Look at Red Lustrous Arm-Vessels. Pp. 197-210 in L. Crewe, L. Hulin and J.M. Webb (eds) Structures of Inequality. Studies in Honour of Alison K. South. SIMA Pocketbook 187. Jonsered: P. Åströms Förlag.
  • Shifting Relations in Bronze Age Gaza: An Investigation into Egyptianizing Practices and Cultural Hybridity in the Southern Levant During the Second Millennium BC. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 20: 15-30.
  • Watery Entanglements in the Cypriot Hinterland During the Bronze Age. Land. Special Issue 7: “Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée”, edited G. Papantoniou and Th. Vionis, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/special_issues/landscape_archaeology
  • 2017
  • Exploring the Materiality of Food“Stuffs”: Transformations, Symbolic Consumption and Embodiments, L. Steel and K. Zinn (eds). New York & London: Routledge.
  • 2016
  • Exploring Aredhiou: New Light on the Rural Communities of the Cypriot Hinterland During the Late Bronze Age, American Journal of Archaeology 120(4): 511-36.
  • The Social and Economic Roles of the Women of Alashiya. Pp. 386-98 in S. Budin and J. McIntosh Turfa (eds) Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World. New York: Routledge.
  • Kitchenalia in Bronze Age Cyprus. In E.J. Abbots (ed.) Special edition on “The Stuff of Food and Bodies”, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 16(3): 79-90.
  • 2013
  • The Social World of Early-Middle Bronze Age Cyprus: Rethinking the Vounous Bowl. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 25/1: 51-73
  • 2012
  • Materiality and Consumption in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. New York & London: Routledge.
  • 2010
  • Late Cypriot Ceramic Production: Heterarchy or Hierarchy? Pp. 106-16 in L. Maguire and D. Bolger (eds), The Development of Pre-State Communities in the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honour of Edgar Peltenburg. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
  • 2009
  • Exploring Regional Settlement on Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age: The Rural Hinterland. Pp. 135-45 in I. Hein (ed.), The Formation of Cyprus in the 2nd Millennium BC. Studies in Regionalism During the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
  • 2008
  • Creation and Expression of Identity in Cyprus at the End of the Late Bronze Age. Pp. 154-175 in C. Gallou, M. Georgiadis, G.M. Muskett (eds), DIOSCURI. Studies presented to W.G. Cavanagh and C.B. Mee on the Anniversary of their 30-Year Joint Contribution to Aegean Archaeology. Oxford: BAR IS 1889.
  • Survey at Arediou Vouppes (Lithosouros): A Late Bronze Age Agricultural Settlement on Cyprus. A Preliminary Analysis of the Material Culture Assemblages. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 351: 9-37. (with C. McCartney)
  • Excavations at Arediou-Vouppes (Lithosouros), Cyprus. An Interim Report on Excavations 2005-2006. Reports of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, 2008: 227-49. (with S. Thomas)
  • Imported Mycenaean, Minoan and Cypriot Pottery and Local Imitations. Pp. 122-31 in T. Dothan, Deir el-Balah: Uncovering an Egyptian Outpost in Canaan from the Time of the Exodus. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum.
  • 2007
  • Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware from Kalavasos. Pp. 179-90 in I. Hein (ed.), The Lustrous Wares of Late Bronze Age Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. (with A. South)
  • 2006
  • Women in Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting. In E. Rystedt and B. Wells (eds), Pictorial Pursuits. Figurative Painting on Mycenaean and Geometric Pottery. Stockholm: Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae 3, LIII, 47-55.
  • Cypriot and Mycenaean Pottery. Chapter 3, pp.151-72, in N. Panitz-Cohen and A. Mazar, Timnah Tel Batash III. The Finds from the Second Millennium BCE. QEDEM 45. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Old City Press.
  • 2005
  • Survey at Arediou-Vouppes 2005. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 2005: 231-44. (with S. Janes)
  • 2004
  • Cyprus Before History. From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the Bronze Age. London: Duckworth Publishing.
  • Egyptian ‘Funerary Cones’ from el-Moghraqa, Gaza. The Antiquaries Journal 84: 319-33. (with W.P. Manley, J. Clarke, M. Sadeq)
  • A Goodly Feast…A Cup of Mellow Wine: Feasting in Bronze Age Cyprus. Pp. 161-80 in J. Wright (ed.), in The Mycenaean Feast. Hesperia 73/2.
  • A Reappraisal of the Distribution, Context and Function of Mycenaean Pottery in Cyprus. Pp. 69-85 in J. Balensi, J.-Y. Monchambert, S. Müller-Celka (eds), La Céramique Mycénienne entre l’Egée et le Levant. Table Rond à la Mémoire de Vronwy Hankey. Travaux de la Masion de l’Orient, Lyon.
  • Gaza Research Project. Report of 1999 and 2000 Seasons at Moghraqa. Levant 36: 37-88. (with J. Clarke, M. Sadeq, B. Manley).
  • Gaza Research Project: 1998 Survey of the Old City of Gaza. Levant 36: 31-6. (J. Clarke, M. Sadeq)

Available to Supervise Doctoral Students

Yes