Richard Hodges

Richard Hodges is one of the most celebrated archaeologists in Europe. In the 1980s his books Dark Age Economics, and Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe changed European archaeology and medieval history. Hodges won the UK’s Archaeology Book of the Year Award for his Wall to Wall History. A renowned biographer of the archaeologist, Thomas Ashby, and a columnist of Current World Archaeology (re-published in Travels with an Archaeologist), he has published widely. In the field Hodges has excavated in many countries, notably discovering the “Dark Age Pompeii” at San Vincenzo al Volturno, and leading rescue excavations at the Roman town on Zeugma on the Euphrates. At Butrint in south-west Albania, he led the international team to make the Graeco-Roman town into a model Mediterranean archaeological park. He is currently leading a major archaeological program for the EU in Tuscany and sits on the board of Herculaneum in the Bay of Naples.

Hodges was Professor at Sheffield University and the University of East Anglia, and visiting Professor at Copenhagen and Siena Universities. He has held two major international posts in archaeology: as Director of the British School at Rome, and Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He was also Director of the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture. He has been President of The American University of Rome since 2012.

Hodges was honored by HM Queen in 1995 receiving the OBE.