Hannah Parsons
Postgraduate Researcher
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
About me:
Hannah Parsons-Morgan is an Al-Qasimi doctoral researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) at the University of Exeter and is a member of the Centre for Islamic Archaeology. Her doctoral research focuses on the consumption of Chinese ceramics in East Africa in the premodern and early colonial period. More generally she is interested in their trade and use throughout the Indian Ocean region, particularly in Muslim and indigenous contexts during the mediaeval and premodern period. She received an MA in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas from the Sainsbury Research Unit (SRU), University of East Anglia, and a BA in History of Art/Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
She has participated in three field seasons at the archaeological site of Harlaa, Ethiopia (2018-2020), two in Bahrain (2019-2020) and conducted a two month field season in the Zanzibar Archipelago (2019).
During her Ph.D. she has curated an exhibition on her research, and has worked as an Associate Lecturer on the Introduction to Islamic Archaeology module.
She has organised and co-organised several conferences, including:
- IOW-Arch, the inaugural Indian Ocean World Archaeology conference (in person, 10th-11th January 2020).
- GIAS: the Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase (online, 26th September and 3rd October 2020).
- 3rd Biennial Arabic Language Teaching & Learning in the UK Higher Education Conference.
- Sorcerer’s Handbook Workshop Funded by the Leverhulme.
- IOW-Arch 2022 - Second Indian Ocean World Archaeology Conference.
She has presented at various conferences, for the most recent see Professional Development.
She has also represented the student body as both a Postgraduate Researcher (PGR) Rep (2019 to 2021) and Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PTA) Rep (2019-2022), and co-organised and co-chaired the regular PGR Seminar Series at IAI from 2019-2021, and initiated the staff-student seminar platform.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hannah-Parsons-Morgan Hannah Parsons-Morgan | University of Exeter - Academia.edu
Research Unit:
Centre for Islamic Archaeology
Research Project:
Chinese Ceramic Consumption Practices in East Africa: Past Materialities, Entanglements, and Identities (8th-17th Centuries AD)
This Ph.D. seeks to reassess and develop current understanding of the different ways in which Chinese ceramics have been consumed throughout East Africa from their introduction in the 8th century AD to the period of Portuguese colonisation beginning in the late 15th century AD. Chinese ceramics were consumed in diverse ways on the East African Coast, most often as serving items, objects for display, architectural features, bridewealth, and funerary goods. Chinese ceramic sherds were also re-worked as items of jewellery and adornment as recent excavations in eastern Ethiopia attest, and even ground down as medicine according to early Portuguese colonial accounts. They were also extensively repaired and curated, sometimes over several centuries.
Research Goals/ Questions
The primary research aim is to build a fuller understanding of the consumption of Chinese ceramics across East Africa, focusing on the Horn of Africa and the Swahili Coast over a 1000 year period. More specifically, research questions include:
- How were Chinese ceramics used from the 8th-17th centuries in East Africa?
- Do consumption patterns change through time/ space?
- Do consumption practices reflect those in the wider Muslim world?
- Are there consumption practices/ ceramic forms absent from East Africa that we would expect to see in a Muslim context?
- Are the types of modification found at Harlaa, Ethiopia, present elsewhere in East Africa?
- Are there consumption practices/ ceramic forms present in East Africa that are unusual in an Islamic Muslim context?
- Are Chinese ceramics found in non-Islamic contexts in East Africa?
Research Supervisory team:
Prof. Timothy Insoll (Al-Qasimi Professor of African and Islamic Archaeology)
Dr. John P. Cooper (Senior Lecturer in Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture)
Research Wider Research Interests:
Indian Ocean Archaeology, Islamic Archaeology, Chinese Ceramics, Asian Archaeology, African Archaeology, Experimental Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, Art History, History,
Education:
January 2017 January 9999
University of Exeter
Ph.D.
Thesis title:
Chinese Ceramic Consumption Practices in East Africa: Past Materialities, Entanglements, and Identities (8th-17th Centuries AD)
Supervisors - Prof. Timothy Insoll and Dr. John P. Cooper
Centre for Islamic Archaeology,
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
January 2014 January 2015
University of East Anglia
MA Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (Distinction)
Dissertation:
The Enchantment of Chinese Ceramics: Indigenous Consumption and Modification of Chinese and Chinese-style Ceramics in Borneo
Supervisor - Dr. Karen Jacobs
The Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas,
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
January 2011 January 2014
University of London
BA History of Art/ Archaeology
Dissertation:
The use of Chinese ceramics as an architectural feature on the Swahili coast with comparative examples from the wider Indian Ocean coastal region
Supervisor - Dr. Stacey Pierson
The School of Oriental and African Studies
Professional Development:
2022-12-19
Conferences/Symposiums-IOW-Arch 2022 - Indian Ocean World Archaeology Conference
Co-organiser and administrator for the second IOW-Arch conference, a conference dedicated to the archaeology of the Indian Ocean World, which was held at the IAIS, University of Exeter, on behalf of the organising Committee:
Annabel Gallop, Mark Horton, Timothy Insoll, Derek Kennet,
Elizabeth Lambourn, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Ran Zhang.
2021-04-00
Conferences/Symposiums-3rd Biennial Arabic Language Teaching & Learning in UK Higher Education Conference
Helping with the organisation of the 3rd Biennial Arabic Language Teaching & Learning in UK Higher Education Conference.
2020-10-29
Conferences/Symposiums-Storie (di) Ceramiche 7 - Bacini ceramici
"The Consumption of Chinese Ceramics as Architectural Features on the Swahili Coast: examples from the Zanzibar Archipelago and Kunduchi, Tanzania,” Storie (di) Ceramiche 7 - Bacini ceramici, Online Symposium, Pisa, Italy.
2020-10-03
Conferences/Symposiums-Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase
“A Chinese Ceramic Assemblage in Eastern Ethiopia: Materialities and Modification at Mediaeval Harlaa”, Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase, Centre for Islamic Archaeology, IAIS University of Exeter, September and October 2020.
2020-10-01
Conferences/Symposiums-Ernst Herzfeld Society Annual Conference
“The Consumption of Chinese Ceramics as Architectural Features: Swahili funerary structures on the Zanzibar Archipelago and Kunduchi, Tanzania,” Online Graduate Meeting, The Arts and Archaeology of Funerary Cultures in Islam, Ernst Herzfeld Society Annual Conference, October 2020
2020-01-10
Exhibition-An Introduction to Chinese Ceramics in East Africa: Consumption, Display and Modification from the 8th century to Today
This exhibition, based on doctoral research by IAIS student Hannah Parsons, explores the ways in which Chinese ceramics have been used in East Africa from their initial introduction in the 8th century through to today. The exhibition focuses on architectural adornment in and on houses, mosques, and tombs on the Swahili Coast, and the modification of broken sherds in Ethiopia and the wider Islamic world. These different consumption practices are explored visually and contextualised with displays of Chinese ceramics from the Western Indian Ocean.
by Hannah Parsons-Morgan - h.l.parsons@exeter.ac.uk
10 January 2020 - Present
Exhibition open to the public weekdays: 9am - 5pm.
2020-01-00
Conferences/Symposiums-IOW-Arch: Indian Ocean World Archaeology
Organised the inaugural IOW-Arch conference, a conference dedicated to the archaeology of the Indian Ocean World, which was held at the IAIS, University of Exeter, on behalf of the organising Committee:
Annabel Gallop, Mark Horton, Timothy Insoll, Derek Kennet,
Elizabeth Lambourn, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Ran Zhang.
2020-00-00
Conferences/Symposiums-Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase
Initiated, organised and led Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase 2020 with Awet Teklehimanot Araya, which provided a platform for graduate students and ECR's around the world the present their research to a global audience.
To read more about the conference see:
GIAS: Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase 2020
To watch the presentations see:
Global Islamic Archaeology Showcase 2020 - YouTube