Recently, I signed a contract with Oxford University Press for an interdisciplinary volume entitled The Oxford Handbook of Light in Archaeology. This book, which will be edited by myself and Graeme Earl, is the only book to date dedicated to the concept of light in archaeology, since existing work in this area is either specifically related to forms of illumination, to isolated case studies or to light in literature and iconography.
This volume will undertake an interdisciplinary approach, by considering light in the context of humanities, architecture, engineering, computer science and the arts. As such, it will serve to combine alternative culturally specific analyses of light and an alternative approach to cultural studies. With increasing recognition by archaeologists and anthropologists that archaeological interpretations of space, form and behaviour are missing light as an essential element, this book breaks new ground by placing light at the heart of archaeological narratives from a broad region of the world and a broad sweep of time.
It will explore many dimensions of lighting and darkness in a wide range of dwellings, settlements, private and public spaces, monuments and religious buildings, as well as in various aspects of everyday life in the past and the present. The book will bring together diverse geographical and chronological studies, ranging from prehistory to the present and from Europe to America.
The book will be divided in three sections:
I. Light in Religion, Worship and Rituals;
II. Natural and Artificial Light in Dwellings, Public Spaces and Working Environments;
III. Theorising Method: Design, Capture and Simulation of Light for Sites, Structures, Museums and Artefacts.
It will contain 34 chapters by most of the leading scholars in the field (alphabetical order): Michael Ashley, Mikkel Bille, Eleni Bintsi, Eva Bosch, Efrosyni Boutsikas, Jean-Philippe Carrié, Eleftheria Deko, Matt Gatton, Dragoş Gheorghiou, Lucy Goodison, David Griffiths, Yannis Hamilakis, Jassim Happa, Tim Ingold, Malcolm Innes, Andrew Jones, Constantine M. Kapos, Eleni Kotoula, Eric Lapp, Nessa Leibhammer, Bob Miller, Ioannis Motsianos, Dorina Moullou, Holley Moyes, Axel E. Nielsen, Timothy R Pauketat, Paul Pettitt, Joshua Pollard, Iakovos Potamianos, Maria Sardi, Tim Flohr Sørensen, Frangiskos V. Topalis, Ruth M. Van Dyke, William Walker, Ian West, Chris Woolgar, Athanassia Zografou.
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