Dark, Ken (K.R. Dark)

PERSONAL:

Education: University of York, B.A.; University of Cambridge, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, University of Reading, P.O. Box 216, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AA, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Archaeologist, educator, and writer. University of Reading, Reading, England, chair of Late Antiquity Research Group and director of the inter-school Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies; also director of the Istanbul Archaeological Rescue Project. Previously taught at the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Honorary professorships from European and American universities.

WRITINGS:

(As K.R. Dark) Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity, 300-800, Leicester University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(As K.R. Dark) Theoretical Archeology, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1995.

(Editor and contributor, as K.R. Dark) External Contacts and the Economy of Late Roman and Post-Roman Britain, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 1996.

(With Petra Dark) The Landscape of Roman Britain, Sutton (Stroud, Gloucestershire, England), 1997.

(As K.R. Dark) The Waves of Time: Long-Term Change and International Relations, Pinter (New York, NY), 1998.

Pottery, Tempus (Charleston, SC), 2001.

Britain and the End of the Roman Empire, Tempus (Charleston, SC), 2002.

(Editor) Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire, David Brown (Oakville, CT), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ken Dark is an archaeologist whose primary area of interest is the first millennium AD in Europe and the Mediterranean, including Byzantine cities, Byzantine pottery, and fourth-to seventh-century Britain. He is the author of several books focusing on his academic interests including Britain and the End of the Roman Empire. The book presents the author's thesis that some of the late Roman provinces of Britain and their later tribal territories did not collapse with the end of the Roman Empire but rather experienced a political continuity and survived with a similar Roman-Christian culture that existed earlier in Late Antiquity. Writing in the journal Antiquity, Simon Esmonde Cleary noted that "this book contains a really impressive amount of information assiduously quarried from a wide range of disciplines concerning a multiplicity of evidence types."

Dark discusses the Byzantine ceramic tradition in his book Byzantine Pottery. In a review of the book for Antiquity, James Crow noted: "Dark raises and alludes to a number of major issues relating to the contribution of ceramic studies for the understanding of Byzantine society and the cultural relations between Byzantium and its neighbours."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Antiquity, September, 2001, Simon Esmonde Cleary, review of Britain and the End of the Roman Empire, p. 649; June, 2004, James Crow, review of Byzantine Pottery, p. 476.

English Historical Review, September, 1998, Martin Henig, review of External Contacts and the Economy of Late Roman and Post-Roman Britain, p. 963.

ONLINE

University of Reading Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Web site,http://www.rdg.ac.uk/byzantinestudies/ (March 29, 2007), faculty profile of author.

Wansdyke Project 21,http://www.wansdyke21.org.uk/ (March 29, 2007), Robert M. Vermaat, "Dark Age British Earthworks—An Interview with Dr. Ken Dark."