Claudia Sagona

Biography

Claudia Sagona MOM, FAHA is an Honorary Principal Fellow in Archaeology, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, Classics and Archaeology, at The University of Melbourne. Her research areas include the archaeology of the Caucasus, of Eastern Anatolia and of the central Mediterranean focused on the Maltese Archipelago. In recognition of her contribution to Malta, she was made an honorary member of the National Order of Merit of Malta (MOM) in 2007. She gained her degrees at the University of Melbourne [BA(Hons), MA, DipEd, PhD].

Archaeological fieldwork has taken her to Syria, the highlands of eastern Turkey and the Republic of Georgia. In Malta, she was a senior staff member of the excavations at the Phoenician-Punic temple site of Tas-Silġ. Her interests are broad ranging from household and funerary archaeology, through migration and mobility, to religious practices and concepts of ethnicity. Her research has included artefact analysis and ways in which such objects can inform us about human behaviour and thought processes. She established the cultural sequence (evident primarily in funerary remains) for the Phoenician-Punic period spanning a millennium in Malta, which had previously been poorly understood. Concerning Turkey and the Caucasus, her research has also charted the historic movement of people through the regions and provided strong evidence for the toponymic history of the Bayburt, Erzurum, Gümüşhane and Trabzon provinces.

Her other professional activities include the role of co-editor of the Ancient Near Eastern Studies, monograph series (Peeters Press, Leuven) and she is an advisory board member of Carthage Studies (Department of Archaeology and Ancient History of Europe, Ghent University). Over the last two decades, she has given occasional lectures and has supervised numerous PhD and other students at the University of Melbourne. She has published nine books and over 50 articles. Notable publications include: The Archaeology of Malta: From the Neolithic through the Roman Period (2015); Looking for Mithra in Malta, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion 10 (2009); Archaeology at the North-East Anatolian Frontier, I. An Historical Geography and a Field Survey of the Bayburt Plain (with A. Sagona, 2004); and The Archaeology of Punic Malta (2002). Additional publication details can be found at: Claudia Sagona – Uni Melb