Matteo G Randazzo
Dr Matteo Randazzo was awarded his PhD in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (2021), with a research into Sicily and Crete in the period between Byzantium and the dar al-Islām (8th-10th c.). His main field of expertise is the study of pottery and other material evidence, through which interpreting socio-economic activities, everyday life, and settlement patterns. Besides his PhD research, Matteo’s academic interests expand to the broader spectrum of material culture dating from the Middle Ages and beyond, from ca. 6th-7th c. to the 16th-17th c. He has accumulated publications, working and training experience due to active participations in numerous conferences, archaeological campaigns, and archive studies across Sicily and the Aegean, collaborating with the Universities of Edinburgh, Newcastle, York, Oslo, Cadiz, ‘Sapienza’ of Rome, and ‘Kore’ of Enna, and with the BSA and other prestigious institutions in Italy, Greece, Spain, and the UK.
Address: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Address: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
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Papers by Matteo G Randazzo
coevi provengono dal Duomo di Cefalù e dal Castello di Noto Antica ma siamo certi che esistano numerosi altri esempli affini al nostro.
This short report focuses on a late Medieval ceramic roof-tile unearthed
during recent excavations at the Castello di Lombardia at Enna (Central Sicily), which bears, incised after fi ring, the board game called “nine men’s Morris”. According to the context of recovery, this item dates to the 13th-early 14th centuries. On a global scale, the evidence of 13th-14th centuries nine men’s Morris spans from Scandinavia to the Indian Ocean, indicating the great popularity of this game. In Sicily, however, a comprehensive survey of ancient gameboards is missing; contemporaneous monumental examples come from the Duomo of Cefalù and the Castello di Noto Antica, but the record is unquestionably more extensive.
From the beginning this conference has been the fruit of collaborative efforts amongst individual scholars and institutions, as well, from many different countries. First, within the University of Edinburgh itself, the conference marks an important development in interdisciplinary collaboration amongst schools and colleges, as it is co-organized by students from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology together with the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.
Moreover, we are very happy to have welcomed here scholars from all over the world to present their research from 20 different institutions in several countries: France, Greece, Turkey, Finland, UK, USA, Austria, Egypt, Italy, Denmark and Israel. Finally, this fruitful and multi-faceted collaboration would not have been possible without the generous support of the Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Research Group of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology together with the Alwaleed Centre of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, both of the University of Edinburgh, as well as generous support from the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
This booklet of abstracts has a twofold aim: 1) to situate this conference within the wider research context of the University of Edinburgh, highlighting the interdisciplinary work being conducted here with the hope of establishing these interdepartmental relations on solid ground for years to come, and 2) to make the fruits of these joint efforts readily available to a wider, global audience, both within academia and beyond, by means of various media and open-access publishing.
Specifically, the key points of the following research are two: A) the first typological classification of the different shapes belong to this category of pottery which have been documented in Sicily to date; B) the analysis of the geographical diffusion of the Tipo Rocchicella on the island as a complementary device by which investigating the impact of political change in the distribution and hierarchy of settlement patterns, economic activities, and connectivity networks.
The global reading of these data, which are especially based on evidence surfaced after 2010, has led to the acquisition of complementary evidence which, yielding a more complete domestic milieu for the 8th-9th centuries in Sicily and revealing the existence of a complex system of settlement patterns, result in an overall framework more complete than it was known until few years ago.
Talks by Matteo G Randazzo