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Paul Bennett Awarded MBE

Paul Bennett, Director of Canterbury Archaeological Trust and Visiting Professor at CCCU’s Centre for Kent History and Heritage has been has been appointed as MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Paul has been Director of the Trust, which currently employs over 70 people, since 1984 and has led the Trust in a significant number of important local investigations, including excavations on the site of CCCU and across the city. Paul has not only led and developed the work of the Trust, but he is also personally committed to working with members of the public on community archaeology. He is the archaeological consultant to the Diocese of Canterbury and an advisor to Canterbury Cathedral.

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As well as being an important local presence, Paul has an international reputation as an expert on Libya, where he has conducted extensive fieldwork and amongst other activities is Director of the Euesperides, Benghazi project. More recently, he has been working in Northern Iraq. He was Chairman of the Society for Libyan Studies 2002-2008 and is presently Head of Mission of the Society (the UK Mission to Libya). He has helped to produce charters for the conservation and development of Tripoli and Benghazi for the Libyan Government, and as a consultant working for the World Bank, helped to produce a five year plan for the Department of Antiquities of Libya, a manual on the conservation of Libyan Built Heritage, organised the translation of an important English language archaeological guide to Tripolitania into Arabic and is hoping to complete a World Heritage Management Plan for Cyrene.

Paul has extensive experience of archaeological education in universities and in the field on training excavations, including participating in the running the Trust’s Field School at East Wear Bay. He is currently developing training courses for Libyan archaeologists and planning professionals for delivery in Tunisia and the UK. Paul also has an extensive publication list covering his archaeological investigations in Kent and Libya.

Paul is Chairman of the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust and in addition to his duties of promoting the Dover Bronze Age Boat Gallery in Dover Museum, he can be found most Sundays in Dover Harbour with a crew of paddlers, putting a half-scale replica of the Dover Boat through its paces, as part of an on-going archaeological experiment.

Paul is a regular contributor to events run by the Centre for Kent History and Heritage including the Medieval History Weekend and he delivers an annual lecture as Visiting Professor about his work as a professional Archaeologist.

 

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Last edited: 13/12/2018 19:22:00