Professor Andrew Wilson

Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire

Archaeology, Classics

Andrew Wilson is Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford (since 2004). His research focuses on the Roman economy, ancient technology, Roman gold mining, urbanism and settlement. He is co-director (with Alan Bowman) of the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OxREP), and (with Chris Howgego) of the OxREP-Ashmolean Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire project; and he is also Principal Investigator of the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project (EAMENA).

Links

Email: andrew.wilson@arch.ox.ac.uk

ORCID

Oxford Academia Profile

Google Scholar Profile

The Oxford Roman Economy Project

Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire

EAMENA Database

Research Areas

The Archaeology of the Roman Economy

Roman Mining

Ancient Technology

Ancient Water Management

Ancient Plagues and Diseases

The Archaeology of the Third-century Crisis

Selected Publications

Catastrophes in Context: Disaster and Response in the Roman and Early Byzantine World. Turnhout, Brepols.

Raja, R. and Wilson, A. I. (eds) (2026)

The Place of Palms: An Urban Park at Aphrodisias. Results of The Mica and Ahmet Ertegün South Agora Pool Project

Wilson, A. I. and Russell, B. (2024). (Aphrodisias 14). Wiesbaden, Reichert Verlag.

The Economy of Roman Religion (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy).

Wilson, A. I., Ray, N. and Trentacoste, A. (eds) (2023). Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Simulating Roman Economies: Theories, Methods, and Computational Models (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy).

Brughmans, T. and Wilson, A. I. (eds) (2022). Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Wilson, A. I. (2022). ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events: The end of classical urbanism in southwestern Asia Minor in the early seventh century AD’

M. Whitby and P. Booth (eds), Mélanges James Howard-Johnston (Travaux et mémoires 26), 565–594. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance.

Wilson, A. I. (2020). ‘Roman water-power: chronological trends and geographical spread’

P. Erdkamp, K. Verboven and A. Zuiderhoek (eds), Capital, Investment, and Innovation in the Roman World (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy), 147–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Teaching

I give various lectures on Roman Archaeology: "Roman Archaeology: Cities and Settlement under the Empire", in Michaelmas Term; "The Archaeology of the Roman Economy" in Hilary Term, and other Roman courses as required.

At Masters level I teach options on Greek and Roman Landscape Archaeology, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy, and the Middle Imperial Period (AD 70–250).

Doctoral supervision

I have supervised (or co-supervised) 34 doctoral theses to completion, and currently have 10 doctoral students. I am interested in supervising topics on the Roman economy, mining, technology, and landscape archaeology.

Current research

I am currently working on Roman hydraulic gold mining, the archaeology of the third-century crisis, and how the archaeology of the ancient world helps us understand ancient literature.

I am collaborating with Dr Gül Surmelihindi and Prof. Cees Passchier (Mainz) on the analysis of limescale deposits in Roman aqueducts, to understand their chronology, maintenance regimes, and water quality.