Stephanie Black

Name

Stephanie Black

Current position

MA Student

Where did you study?

Macquarie University, Australia

Durham University, UK

How did you become interested in archaeology?

As a child I was obsessed with a book series about an archaeologist called Cairo Jim. He was always going on amazing adventures and uncovering all these mysteries on archaeological sites. He also had an arch nemesis called Neptune Flannelbottom Bone and (as a child) I thought it would be fun to have an arch nemesis and go on adventures around the world.

The less exciting answer is I was homeschooled and my mum taught me lots of history. I also love murder mysteries and wanted to be a detective. So the perfect mixture of those two interests at 17 was archaeology and it was the best decision of my life.

What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?

I'm working on my MA dissertation on the Iron Age of southeast Arabia.

Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.

When I was excavating in Dubai the team found a miniature bronze votive bow and arrows. It was such an interesting object as it was only the second one found on the site.

Tell us about a funny / disastrous / amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology.

While surveying burial mounds in Bulgaria we ran out of water and I genuinely think we would have died. We were in the middle of these fields with no shade under the sun with no water and I had stopped sweating. Definitely dangerous so I always make sure to carry extra water and an energy drink when excavating or surveying.

What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?

That moment when you uncover an artifact for the first time and you are the first person to see it in hundreds or thousands of years. In that moment before you call people over to look and it's just you and the object that moment of peace is what I love. You are then forever connected to the person if the past who last saw/touched it. Even though you will probably not know who they are you are forever connected and I think that's beautiful.

Follow up reading.

I post about being an archaeologist and studying archaeology on my tiktok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLGj5M8d/