ELEANOR STANDLEY
Contact
Email: eleanor.standley@arch.ox.ac.uk
ORCID: 0000-0002-2793-5872
Academia.edu
University of Oxford webpages
Fellow of St Cross College
School of Archaeology
Biography
I am Associate Professor for Later Medieval Archaeology in the School of Archaeology, and Curator of the Medieval Archaeology Collections in the Ashmolean Museum.
My research focuses on the later medieval period in Britain and Europe, with a particular interest in themes of daily life. I am especially interested in the use and socio-cultural significance of everyday objects, and the people that used them. These interests transcend the traditional disciplinary boundary to incorporate literature, documentary and art historical evidence to understand more about daily life in the past. The Portable Antiquities Scheme data are also widely used in my studies. Identity, religion, memory, reuse, and the meaning of things and places are themes that feature greatly in my research.
As the curator of the medieval archaeology collections in the Ashmolean, which date from c. 500 to 1800 CE and come from Britain, mainland Europe and Scandinavia, I have a broad ranging interest in historical archaeology. I would welcome applications from potential students, to supervise projects on later medieval archaeological topics, particularly those with a strong focus on artefacts.
My research is currently focussed on the archaeology of emotion during the period c. 1200–1700. I am particularly interested in how material culture can be used to investigate emotions in the later medieval and early modern periods. I am exploring the effect human emotions had on objects, including their designs, uses and deposition; and how objects affected emotions.
Past research projects have focused on:
- The Founding Collection of the Ashmolean Museum and curation of the permanent gallery, 'The Ashmolean Story' with Alison Roberts.
- The Watlington Hoard Project. The Watlington hoard was discovered in southern Oxfordshire in 2015 by a metal-detectorist, and acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2017. It is a nationally-important find of coinage and metalwork, and the first major Viking-Age hoard from the county. The project included a number of public outreach events, knowledge exchange with the Oxfordshire County Museums Service, national loans, and culminated in the publication of The Watlington Hoard: Coinage, Kings and the Viking Great Army in Oxfordshire, AD 875 880 (J Naylor and E Standley 2022, published by Archaeopress).
- The Godstow Abbey Knowledge Exchange project, which was a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Wolvercote Neighbourhood Forum, funded by the HEIF. I was a Co-I on this project alongside Prof Heather Viles (PI) and Dr Martin Coombes (Co-I), both of the School of Geography and the Environment.
- The Medieval Archaeology collections in the Ashmolean, and the curation of the permanent gallery, 'England 400-1600'.
Education
- I studied for a BSc in Archaeology and then an MA in Historical Archaeology at Durham University. Staying at Durham I went on to complete my PhD on later medieval and early modern dress accessories in 2010. Later that year I joined the School of Archaeology and the Ashmolean Museum as University Lecturer and Assistant Keeper of the medieval archaeological collections.
