Is a UK-based freelance, published historian and archaeologist with extensive experience in lecturing and leading tours to the ancient world.
Gillian Hovell, ‘The Muddy Archaeologist’, is a UK-based freelance, published historian and archaeologist with extensive experience in lecturing and leading tours to the ancient world.
After graduating from Exeter University in Latin and Ancient History, Gillian worked in BBC Television and went on to become an award-winning freelance writer, author and public speaker specialising in archaeology, ancient history (and Latin too).
Gillian shares her enthusiastic passion and extensive knowledge in person in courses and lectures and on tours and cruises, in books & freelance writing, in the field, on national and local media, and on-line. She engages with folk in social and professional environments and inspires them to see that archaeological finds and sites are full of human life and passion.
She is now a lecturer at the British Museum and for York University and provides many Lifelong Learning courses independently and for institutions and establishments in the UK and abroad. Her 2018 lecture tour of Australia was so successful that others are being planned.
Her joy is to change the way that people see their work and leisure today, human nature and the world around them. For, as she says, ‘history and archaeology are not just about the past, they’re everywhere, and they add colour, depth and meaning to our lives today.’
As an archaeologist, Gillian led and supported community archaeology projects in a hands-on way for ten years (hence the professional title of ‘The Muddy Archaeologist’). She now actively digs at major sites in the UK and Europe (from Orkney’s prehistoric Ness of Brodgar to Roman Pompeii and Vindolanda, and sites and eras in between).