Class of 1982 graduate receives prestigious award in recognition of lifelong career in the protection of cultural artefacts

Professor David Gill, who studied Classical Studies at Newcastle University from 1979 – 1982, was awarded the Cultural Heritage Protection Initiative Award at the International Arts and Antiquities Security Forum (IAASF) Conference in September 2023. Huge congratulations!

The IAASF Cultural Heritage Protection Initiative Award recognises national or international initiatives that demonstrate a positive and proactive impact on the protection of cultural heritage. For the past 40 years, David has dedicated his career to the preservation and protection of cultural property, conducting fieldwork in Greece and post-excavation projects in Libya, to name but a couple of examples. Prior to receiving this prestigious award from the IAASF, David was the first individual UK academic to receive the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Archaeological Institute of America (in 2012), and has seen his research grace the front cover of the New York Times Arts and Culture supplement.

We spoke to David to find out more about his career and time at Newcastle University – where he met his wife of almost 40 years, Caroline (née Dudley-Smith)!

^{Images above (l-r): David on George Jobey's excavation of a Bronze Age settlement site in the Ingram Valley, Cheviots; Classics and Archaeology outing to Chesters Roman fort.}

During my student days I lived in both Castle Leazes and Ricky Road (which I’m sad to see no longer exists as I knew it). I have fond memories of Classics trips to the Tyne Valley, wading in the river with our trousers rolled up. I also enjoyed the departmental ceilidhs – it was a very happy time.

And it continued when I returned to Newcastle a bit later in my career, from ’86 to ’88, as a Sir James Knott Fellow. The department was small so academics and students all knew each other well and we would often have lunch together. I suppose the pace of life is a bit faster nowadays!

It’s so lovely to hear your fond memories of your academics and the Classical Studies community. Why did you decide to study this subject at Newcastle?

I grew up in Hampshire and we had the Roman city of Silchester relatively close by; I enjoyed having walks around the city walls. And then a bit later on, I got involved with Rescue archaeology, which was a really new thing in the 1970s. The idea was that before large-scale developments took place – building new roads for example – volunteers would excavate the area under supervision. Before moving to Newcastle University I helped with the excavation that preceded the construction of the A10 in Hertfordshire.

So my big interests when I came to university were archaeology and the Greek and Roman worlds; Classical Studies turned out to be a perfect fit!

I have to admit, shamefully now, that Newcastle wasn’t my first choice. I actually had my heart set on going to Sheffield University. But I had family in the North East—and Hadrian’s Wall was a big draw. It was actually my experience at the interview that sold Newcastle to me and made it my first choice; and so now, as an academic sitting on the other side of those interview panels, I try to acknowledge the fact that a good interview experience can help determine the course of an individual’s future.

We got married just before I completed my DPhil and spent our first year as a married couple in Rome, which was quite an adventure. I had gained a scholarship at the British School at Rome, working alongside archaeologists and artists and lots of interesting people.

While we were living in Italy, we travelled around the country and explored plenty of new places. I remember visiting Pompeii in February and having to wear our puffer jackets in the hotel room because it was so cold – there was snow on Vesuvius and I honestly don’t think we’d been so chilly in our lives – and then a day or two later we were in Sicily, wearing short sleeves and eating gifts of oranges off the trees. It was just totally different. 

Caroline, a published poet, has a wonderful poem about the colony of cats in the Protestant cemetery at Rome that lies outside the ancient city walls, so it’s a time in our lives we both look back on with fond memories.

Your award from the IAASF is in recognition of your lifetime work in the preservation and protection of cultural property. Can you tell us a bit more about your work and why cultural protection is so important?

I have been working in cultural property and protection since around 1988. Major research areas have included the history of collecting, archaeological ethics and the economic benefits of heritage – particularly looking at the impact of UNESCO World Heritage sites in Greece.

When I worked at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, a few colleagues and I were expressing our dismay over the growing rise in the looting of cultural artefacts from archaeological sites. We mapped out a study exploring the damage that this looting has on archaeological context and the ways in which we can interpret it. This study on Cycladic marble sculptures from the Aegean has become a bit of a classic in itself, and it’s always quite humbling at conferences to have people come up to you to tell you they read your paper as a student!

So that was the starting point, and since then I’ve worked on a number of papers with my colleague Chris Chippindale and my former research student Christos Tsirogiannis. We’ve researched artefacts that have turned up in auctions and in collections, identifying them and trying to figure out if they have arrived there via illicit channels. Over 1,000 archaeological objects have been returned from North American collections to Italy as part of this project, which seems quite significant.

We had been saying for a while that this was a major problem, and then in the 1990s, because of various legal interventions and arrests, we were suddenly able to access a photographic and documentary archive of artefacts. This enabled us to demonstrate unequivocally that the objects had been looted. I received the Outstanding Public Service Award in Philadelphia for this work.

The IAASF award acknowledges the whole body of work I have created throughout my career in terms of cultural property issues, relating mainly to Italy, Greece and Turkey. But I’ve also been researching looting in the Middle Eastern and just how prevalent it is, and how the dealers are coming up with sophisticated ways to move items across borders.

It’s not just about how this theft affects our understanding of the culture or place; but also, how the money is made from the looting and then fed back to the country and various organisations in it. It can be really pertinent to Middle East security, especially when you think about the conflict this area of the world has been experiencing.

What a lovely story! And it really shows the importance of public engagement in academic research too.

Another little highlight which always makes me chuckle is that I was named on the Independent on Sunday’s Happy List – the top 100 people who make Britain a happier and more contented place – alongside Aleksandr the Meerkat!

Amazing! Finally, David, I’d like to ask you to share some alumni wisdom. What one bit of advice would you give to somebody who has recently graduated from Newcastle University?

I would wind it back to before you’ve even reached graduation and encourage any students reading this to make the most of all the opportunities, networks and friendships available to you at university – because they can last a lifetime.

Not only did I meet my wife and make lifelong friends at Newcastle; I was also able to make the most of the new Language Lab and learn German alongside my studies, which has been invaluable in my career.

So keep up with your contemporaries – it’s much easier to do this nowadays than it was in the snailmail era of the 80s! They are there for you in the good times and the bad.

Very wise advice. Thanks so much for speaking to us, David.

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Image credit: David in the Egypt Centre (Wales Online)