Dr Beth Munro

Profile

My research focuses on the architectural design and recycling of late Roman villas – how their conceived design affects function, and how the dismantling and reprocessing of villa architecture became an important feature at the end of antiquity. I completed my DPhil (PhD) at Oxford, and my thesis identified and examined on-site workshops, which were used to recycle glass, metal, and stone taken from 4th-6th century AD villas in Italy. This research demonstrated the technological process of recycling and examined the remains of installations and hoarded materials at villas. In a subsequent one-year Postdoctoral Fellowship, supported by the Canada Research Chair in Roman Archaeology, I expanded the geographical scope of this research by examining villas with recycling facilities in France, Spain, and Portugal, and further exposed the consistency in recycling programmes and technology in late antiquity. This showed that the recuperation and reprocessing of architectural materials was an organised and systematic activity, and challenged the notion of ‘squatters’ at villas in late antiquity. I have published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology and numerous other volumes. I am currently working on a book, which draws together three facets of research on late Roman villas - architectural design, recycling, and landownership – to show that the villa was crucial to the physical construction of the post-Roman landscape.