Susan Sherratt FSA FSA Scot (born 26 September 1949) is Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the archaeology of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the Aegean, Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean, especially trade and interaction within and beyond these regions.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Susan Sherratt (née Dobson; known as Sue), was born on 26 September 1949 in Houston, Scotland. She studied for a BA in Classics at New Hall (now Murray Edwards College), University of Cambridge, from 1968 to 1971, and then moved to Somerville College, University of Oxford, for a Postgraduate Diploma in Classical Archaeology (1973) and a DPhil on 12th century BCE Mycenaean pottery, supervised by Mervyn Popham (1982).^[1][2]

Academic career

After completing her DPhil, Sherratt held a range of academic positions in Oxford including as a research assistant on various projects, Sackler Research Fellow (1993-1995), Director of Studies for Archaeology and Anthropology for several colleges (1994-2002), and Assistant Curator and Honorary Research Assistant to the Arthur Evans Archive in the Ashmolean Museum.^[1] In 2004 she held a Visiting Fellowship at Heidelberg University, and took up an Academic Fellowship and then a permanent lectureship in the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield in 2005.^[1] She has published on a wide range of topics in Late Bronze Age Greek, Cypriot, and eastern Mediterranean archaeology, including the economy of pottery, metals, and other aspects of material culture; the relationship between the Homeric epics and archaeological evidence; trade and other cultural interactions; and the history of museums and collecting.^[1] She is a member of the Sinop Regional Archaeological Project, which is investigating long-term patterns of land-use and settlement and communication networks in the Black Sea coastal region of Sinop, Turkey,^[3] and of the Palaepahos Urban Landscape Project studying the site of Ancient Paphos.^[4][5][6]

A collected volume of essays celebrating Sherratt's important contributions to archaeology, 'ΑΘΥΡΜΑΤΑ Critical Essays on the Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honour of E. Susan Sherratt', was published in 2014.^[7] In the same year, Sherratt was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the British Academy for the project 'Silver before coinage: a history of silver from the fifth millennium to the mid-first millennium BC'.^[8] She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.^[2]

Personal life

Sherratt married Andrew Sherratt, also an archaeologist and Assistant Keeper of Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum, in 1974; they had two sons and one daughter, and published articles together on topics such as Indo-European origins, the economy of the eastern Mediterranean, relationships between the Aegean and the wider world, technological change and exchange.^[1]

Selected publications

References