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Simon Keay

Simon Keay

have been at the University of Southampton since 1985. I specialise in the archaeology of the Roman Empire, with particular interests in Iberia, Italy and Roman commerce. I have been the Principal Investigator on numerous international research projects, including the Ager Tarraconensis survey, the AHRC funded projects Urban Connectivity in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain, and the Roman Towns in the Middle and Lower Tiber Valley, and have directed excavations and geophysical survey at a range of sites in Spain and Italy. Since 2006 I have been Director of the AHRC-funded Portus Project as well as the Roman Port Networks Project.

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Roman ships at Portus

In response to queries from learners I thought I would provide some additional information about evidence for the Roman ships at Portus. We can expect the basins and canals at Portus to have been crowded with hundreds of commercial ships and boats; one recent estimate, for example, suggests that c. 1800 sea-going ships may have anchored in the Trajanic basin each year. Continue reading →

Recent discoveries at Ostia

  The Archaeology of Portus MOOC will include some of our very latest findings, recently showcased in international media e.g. on BBC News in the UK. The recent discovery of the walled area of warehouses on the north side of the Tiber at by the Portus Project and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma represents another major advance in our understanding of the relationship between Portus and Ostia. Continue reading →

Registration opens for our MOOC

It is really gratifying to know that registration has now opened for the Portus MOOC, with the course actually starting in May. A huge amount of effort has been expended in getting us to this stage. Filming sessions in the field with our students during the 2013 Portus Field School was intensive and, as I hope you will agree, hugely rewarding and since then we have been assembling other materials and thinking of ways to bring you closer to the site and our activities there. Continue reading →