Nicholas Bartos

Nicholas Bartos

PhD Candidate - Classical Archaeology

I am a PhD candidate in Classical Archaeology, focusing on the development of maritime economies and social communities across the Mediterranean and the western Indian Ocean during the Roman period. 

My dissertation investigates commercial relationships in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Arabian Sea from 100 BCE to 700 CE using archaeological signatures of exchange such as ceramics and coins at representative port sites. Through comparison of the changes in these material networks with GIS-based sailing models, I am exploring the extent to which ports were integrated within distinct economic regions across this space and how these connections were affected by marine topographies, the technological parameters of ancient seafaring, and the changing socio-political circumstances of the states involved. As part of this research, I work as a ceramicist with the Berenike Project along the Egyptian Red Sea, at Pattanam in southwestern India, and have traveled to study port assemblages in western and southeastern India. In the Mediterranean, I have worked in southeastern Sicily since 2014, first on the excavations of the Marzamemi “church wreck” and currently as the underwater field director at the ports of Vendicari, Marzamemi, and Portopalo di Capo Passero. Recent research has been supported by the American Research Center in Egypt, Council of American Overseas Research Centers, Economic History Association, and Stanford Europe Center and School of Humanities and Sciences.

Prior to my PhD, I graduated from Brown University with a BA in Archaeology and the Ancient World (2013) before attending the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Fund Scholar (MPhil in Archaeology, 2015).  I then worked as a field archaeologist and in the post-excavation and publications department at Oxford Archaeology Ltd., a UK-based commercial archaeological practice, and on the editorial team at Current World Archaeology, a popular archaeological magazine based in London. In addition to current fieldwork, I have participated on a range of terrestrial and underwater archaeological projects in Albania, Croatia, Italy, Montenegro, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Stanford MEDLab: https://medlab.stanford.edu/people/nicholas-bartos
Stanford Archaeology Center: https://archaeology.stanford.edu/people/nicholas-bartos
 

Research Interest(s)
Research Subfields
Ancient Roman Archaeology
Ancient Roman History