Professor Andrew Petersen MA, MPhil, PhD

Director of Research in Islamic Archaeology

Prof. Petersen studied medieval history and archaeology at St.Andrews followed by an MPhil in Islamic Architecture at Oxford. His PhD at Cardiff University concentrated on the development of urban centres in medieval and Ottoman Palestine. He has worked in and carried out research in a number of countries of the Middle East and Africa including, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Turkmenistan, the UAE, Oman, Syria, Qatar, Kenya and Tanzania. He has also worked in British archaeology with a speciality in recording standing buildings.

• Corporate Member Institute for Archaeologists- MIFA
• Fellow of the  Royal Historical Society FRHistS

Modules Taught:

In addition to contributing to general method and theory courses the following specialised modules have been taught:

• Shrines of Muslim Palestine
• Ottoman Archaeology
• Archaeology of Buildings
• Islamic Architecture

• Ottoman Archaeology
• Islamic Archaeology of Arabia
• Islamic Architecture
• History and Archaeology of Muslim Towns
• Archaeological evidence for Islam in Britain and Europe

• Archaeological Building Survey
• Excavation of historic period sites
• Islamic Architecture

• Islamic Archaeology Project in Qatar
• Consultant Erbil Citadel  Kurdish Regional Government
• Consultant Qatar Museums Authority  (National Museum and Museum of Islamic Art)

The Archaeology of the Syrian Hajj Route in the Medieval and Ottoman Periods Route  British Academy/ Oxbow, Oxford  2012.

The Archaeology of Towns in Muslim Palestine  BAR, Archaeopress Oxford. 2005

Gazetteer of Medieval and Ottoman Buildings in Muslim Palestine. Part 1.  British Academy Monographs in Archaeology No 12. OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford 2001. (Part 2 is in preparation)

 A Dictionary of Islamic Architecture Routledge, London and New   York 1995 (paperback edition 1998 also available on ‘archnet@mit.edu’ from June 2002 ).

Edited Series

Special Section of fifteen papers on ‘Islamic Archaeology’ for Antiquity  2005

Articles

Creole Identity and Syncretism in the Archaeology of Islam in T. Clack ed The archaeology of Creolization and Hybridity Oxford University Press, Oxford. (2014).

The lost fort of Mafraq and the sixteenth century Hajj Route in Jordan in V.Porter ed. Studies in the History and Material Culture of the Hajj, British Museum Press, London (2014)

Qalat Ruwayda and the Fortifications of Qatar Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 42 (2013): 1-16.

Death and Burial in the Islamic world in Nilsson Stutz, L. & Tarlow, S. (eds.)  Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial  (2013) 241-258

Palace, mosque and tomb at al-Ruwaydah, Qatar Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 42 (2012): 1-14.

Islamic Archaeology, Chapter 60 in Insoll and Maclean eds. Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion  OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford (2011).

‘Research on an Islamic period settlement at Ra's Ushairig in northern Qatar’ Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 41 (2011).

‘Excavations and survey at Qal ‘at Ruwaydha in Qatar’ in  Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40 (2010), 35-48.

‘Islamic Urbanism in Eastern Arabia, the case of the al-Ayn-Buraimi Oasis’ in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 39 (2009) 307-320.

‘The Archaeology of Islam in Britain; recognition and potential’

Antiquity December 2008.

‘The Turkish Conquest of Arabia’ in Peacock ed.   Frontiers of the Ottoman World World BritishAcademyCarlton House London. 2008

‘Bridges in Medieval Palestine’ in inU. Vermeulen & K. Dhulster (eds.)   History of Egypt & Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid & Mamluk Eras V. Peeters, Leuven 2008.

2008  ‘The Medieval Hajj Route Through Syria and Jordan’ in D’hustler, K. and A. van Tongerloo eds. Festschrift Professor Urban Vermeulen; Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Studies Peeters, Leuven.

2008 ‘The Ottoman Hajj   Route in Jordan: Motivation and Ideology’ in Walker, B and J-F. Salles eds. Exercising Power in the Age of the Sultanates: Bilad al-Sham and Iran. (Proceedings of the French-American Roundtable of 13-14 May 2005, Amman). IFEAD (Institut Français d’études Arabes de Damas) Damascus.

External Committees

• British Association of Near Eastern Archaeology BANEA Member of steering committee
• Al-Masaq Editorial Board
• Qatar National Day Committee Advisor
• British Museum Exhibition Consultant  and Member of Hajj Exhibition Advisory Committee

Grants

• Qatar Foundation Grant –Visualizing Qatar’s Past $400,000
• British Academy- Buildings of Muslim Palestine £10,000
• Organised the Wales Qatar Archaeology Conference Cardiff September 2010
• Visualizing Qatar’s Past – Exhibition at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar