Spotlight on... Professor Tim Williams

Tim Williams - This week we meet Professor Tim Williams, who was recently awarded the Sir Richard Burton Medal 2022 by the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Here, he chats to us about his current projects and his work leading the Ancient Merv project in Turkmenistan. What is your role and what does it involve?. I coordinate an MA course on the Silk Roads and supervise several PhD students working on various aspects of its archaeology and heritage. I am currently leading the Arcadia-funded Central Asian Archaeological Landscapes project , which is concerned with creating a geospatial inventory of sites right across Central Asia, working with numerous local partner institutions. I am also an active expert for the UNESCO World Heritage nomination of the Silk Roads, including undertaking the ICOMOS Silk Roads thematic study. I have also led the Ancient Merv project in Turkmenistan for the past 20 years - a collaboration between the Turkmenistan Ministry of Culture, the Ancient Merv State Park and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, which aims to research and conserve the remains of one of the great historic cities of the Silk Roads.