David L. Kennedy


David Leslie Kennedy is an archaeologist and historian of the Roman Near East, with a focus on Aerial Archaeology, Roman landscape studies and the Roman military. He is Emeritus Professor and Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Roman Archaeology and History at the University of Western Australia.

Biography

David Kennedy completed a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Manchester in 1974, and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Oxford in 1980. He taught at the University of Sheffield and Boston University before taking up a position at the University of Western Australia in 1990, ultimately as a Winthrop Professor. He retired in October 2017, returned part-time on a research grant in 2018 and retired again in January 2020.
He has been a Tweedie Exploration Fellow, a Cotton Fellow, a Member and Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a Stanley J Seager Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Fellow at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. In 1986-87 he held a Senior Fulbright Travel Scholarship a University of Western Australia 75th Anniversary Award in 1993.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
In 2002 Kennedy was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Federal Government "for services to... archaeology".
He is Chair of the Roman Archaeology Group, Perth, established in 2004 to promote interest in Roman Archaeology.

Scholarship

David Kennedy’s research focus is on the Roman Near East, with an emphasis on Jordan. His interests encapsulate Roman landscape studies, military studies, as well as Roman infrastructure in the Near East.
Kennedy established and directed the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East, a project designed to investigate, document and photograph archaeological sites throughout this region using remote sensing. This includes historical imagery and mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography. The project is designed both to develop a methodology suited to the region and to illuminate settlement history in the Near East.
Between 1997 and 2018 Kennedy conducted annual aerial reconnaissance over Jordan - the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan project, as part of the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan project. the first - and until fecently, only such programme in the Middle East. The project digitises and makes use of international collections, as well as increasing availability of satellite imagery through programs such as Google Earth and Bing in order to conduct wider surveys of the region. A brief video made by Google for its 'Search' series has been published on YouTube which explains the development of this process.
For two years from January 2018 to 2020 he was Director of the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Aerial Archaeology in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia projects. His other projects have included the Jarash Hinterland Survey with Fiona Baker, a rescue project at the Classical city of Zeugma on the Euphrates and currently the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East.
David Kennedy's work on aerial photography and satellite surveys has also resulted in part of his research being directed towards more ancient archaeological remains in the Near East, such as Desert Kites. Kennedy has been working on making research more accessible by publishing in iBook format, the first of which is the ibook which was made available on iTunes. In February 2016 an article titled was published on LiveScience which showcases some of the recent activity in this research area undertaken by David Kennedy and his team.

Published works

Select publications:

Books