Postdoctoral Fellow, 'Trans-Sahara' Project

BA, MPhil, DPhil

Tel: 0116 252 5771

Email: vl46@le.ac.uk

Victoria completed her first degree in history at the University of London. She then had a career in illustrated book publishing as an editor and project manager. Returning to university to study archaeology, an interest derived from working on many excavations with Martin Biddle, she did an M.Phil on Anglo-Saxon and Romano-British archaeology at the University of Oxford in 2005. The cold weather quickly drove her to southern Europe and North African and her D.Phil subject, also at the University of Oxford, was the production and trade of Roman North African cooking wares, supervised by Professor Andrew Wilson and completed in 2010. She was then awarded a post-doctoral Fellowship at the British School of Rome. She is also an honorary Research Associate at the University of Aix-en-Provence.

In terms of fieldwork, Victoria has travelled extensively, and worked on the pottery at sites including Ostia, Pompeii, Cuma and Metaponto in Italy, Leptiminus in Tunisia and Euesperides, Lepcis Magna, Ghadames and Fazzan (as part of David Mattingly’s Desert Migrations Project) in Libya. In addition, she has done research in Malta, Sicily, and the south of France.

Victoria also continues to work with publications and is currently the Publications Manager for the Society for Libyan Studies.

In October 2011 Victoria joined the School of Archaeology and Ancient History as part of the Trans-Sahara project, funded by the European Research Council. This project looks at state formation, migration and trade in the central Sahara between 1000 BC and AD 1500. Her role is principally to study the ceramic evidence from the Saharan zone to trace trading patterns, to investigate degrees of connectivity, the impact of political change on the nature of commercial exchange and differences in the character of settlements. The movement of technologies and the transfer of ideas through ceramic production also allow for an examination of the cultural interplay between the different Saharan communities.

Her other research interests follow a common thread in their exploitation of pottery remains as a complement to other historical and archaeological tools, with a particular emphasis on trade and the economy and ceramic production technology.

Selected Publications

 V. Leitch,  ‘Location, location, location: characterizing coastal and inland production and distribution of Roman African cooking wares’ in Maritime Archaeology and Ancient Trade in the Mediterranean, D. Robinson and A.I. Wilson (eds) (Oxford 2011)

C. Capelli & V. Leitch, ‘A Roman amphora production site at Lepcis Magna: scientific analyses’ Libyan Studies 42 (London 2011)

V. Leitch, ‘Harbour to Desert, Emporium to Sanctuary: Trade in North African Cookwares’ Proceedings of the XVII Congresso Internazionale di Archeologia Classica  (Rome, forthcoming)

R. Adkins, L. Adkins & V. Leitch, The Handbook of British Archaeology. Revised Edition (London, 2008)