Fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2024 to spring 2025 involved excavation and survey in Amarna’s housing areas, including the house of the vizier Nakht, and the continuation of several post-excavation projects. The post-excavation work reported on here is the study of human skeletal materials, pottery, and matting from the non-elite cemeteries; relief fragments from the Maru-Aten; zooarchaeological samples from the house of Panehesy; and lithics and osseous technological pieces from various locations at Amarna. Ongoing community engagement work is also summarised.

Fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2023 to summer 2024 included excavations at the Great Aten Temple, the launch of a new survey and site management project focused on Amarna's housing areas, and the continuation of several post-excavation projects. The post-excavation work reported on here is the study of faience inlays from the Great Aten Temple, and skeletal materials and hair from the non-elite cemeteries. Ongoing community outreach associated with both the cemetery and housing work is also presented.

Fieldwork at Amarna in 2022 included excavation at the Great Aten Temple and the North Desert Cemetery, and the continuation of several post-excavation projects. Those post-excavation projects reported on here are the study of skeletal materials, pottery, plant and organic remains, and inscriptions from the North Desert Cemetery; pottery, plant and other organic remains from the North Cliffs Cemetery; and digital modelling of the North Desert Cemetery. A programme of community outreach in collaboration with the Amarna Visitor Centre also recommenced.

ABSTRACT In this paper we present a proposal for the creation of a standardized evaluation model for participatory/public/community archaeology and heritage initiatives. The proposal is the result of discussions during a Spring School that the University of Padua and the MAG Museum of Alto Garda, Italy, organized between 9 and 15 April 2018. The Spring School brought together international practitioners to compare experiences and share visions for the sustainable future of archaeology and heritage management. We reflect on the process of bringing together our thoughts and views into one place, and on the theoretical and practitioner contexts that inform our proposed model. The model is intended for researchers and practitioners planning to carry out archaeological and heritage projects with communities. We invite readers to try using some or all of the sections of the model in their own work and to contribute to further refinement of the approach.

The exhibition 'Re-imagining Egypt', held at Saffron Walden Museum, UK, between 26 November 2013 and 23 February 2014, aimed to challenge this narrow view. Community engagement was central to this process as almost 100 local school-age children were involved in a series of workshops at the museum that explored artefacts spanning the breadth of Egypt's past, from prehistory to present. This chapter discusses the theory, practice, and outcomes of this process; analyses 'Re-imagining Egypt' as a model for future community engagement in museums and describes whether the exhibition achieved its goal of representing Egypt as the sum of its many parts. Ancient Egypt provided a source of both intellectual challenge and national competition. Interestingly, some Egyptian museums are beginning to promote a different vision of Egypt's past compared to the orientalist rhetoric of the West.

Across Europe, landscapes are recognised as an exceptional frame and ‘common good’ through which societal values are defined and embedded. As the integrated nature of cultural landscapes is increasingly recognised, involving diverse stakeholders in participatory management is essential to ensuring their sustainability. Focusing on a project funded by the Joint Programme Initiative on Cultural Heritage (‘REFIT’), this paper explores the place of a set of common European heritage assets (Iron Age oppida) in landscape management across three different European countries (Spain, France and England). We examine how stakeholders perceive these landscapes, and the engagement of stakeholders in landscape management. This is followed by a discussion of how the REFIT project explored ways that archaeology might act as a driver for enhancing participatory landscape management. Some of the lessons of these approaches are then discussed within the context of the challenges for Europe in developing participatory engagement in landscape management. We suggest that archaeology has significant potential to engage stakeholders in broader reflection on landscape sustainability.

Fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2018 through autumn 2019 included excavation at a previously uninvestigated cemetery, the North Desert Cemetery, located approximately 600 metres south-west of the North Tombs. Several post excavation projects also continued. Those reported on here comprise the study of skeletal materials from the North Cliffs Cemetery, hair and textiles from the North Cliffs and North Desert Cemeteries, and pottery from the North Cliffs Cemetery. A site management and outreach project also continued.

Climatic, social and demographic change is putting increasing pressure on Europe's cultural landscapes. The European Landscape Convention (ELC) recognises these threats and the need to integrate a wider range of stakeholders in the active management of landscapes in order to negotiate the trade-offs needed for future sustainability. This study explores the complexity of the ELC's aims by analysing stakeholder perceptions and values connected to four European cultural landscapes. Connected by the presence of Late Iron Age oppida, the historic significance of these landscapes is integrated alongside their other ecosystems services in order to make detailed comparisons between approaches to landscapes management in France, Spain and the UK. The analysis highlights conflicts and solutions regarding the unification of heritage, farming, environmental and social needs from the diverse contexts in order to make suggestions for wider best practice in the management of cultural landscapes which align more closely with the integrated stakeholder aims of the ELC.

In this paper we introduce the Mograt Island Collaborative Project. Launched in 2014, this project aims to share archaeological narratives with members of a local community in Sudan, and with other stakeholders engaged with the area's past, building on a collaborative process which investigates how archaeological outputs can be explored together in a meaningful way. We discuss the wider context in which the project takes place, its individual steps, the factual outcome of its first phase, and its evaluation in spring 2018. We share this case study to promote collaborative practice in postcolonial, present-day majority Muslim contexts, such as the Nile valley countries, where the approach is thus far underrepresented. Reflecting on the project's trajectory and its results, we also present critical thoughts on its potentials and challenges which can be helpful for readers working in similar contexts.

Fieldwork at Amarna in autumn 2017 and spring 2018 included excavation at a previously uninvestigated pit-grave cemetery, the North Cliffs Cemetery, on the low desert near the North Tombs. Initial results suggest the burials here are closer in character to those at the South Tombs Cemetery (excavated 2006–13) than at the North Tombs Cemetery (excavated 2015, 2017). Several post-excavation projects continued on materials from the North and South Tombs Cemeteries, including skeletal remains, coffins, hair, textiles, head cones, pottery and botanical materials, in addition to the ongoing recording of Kom el-Nana relief fragments and pottery from the Stone Village. A new site management programme, in partnership with the Ministry of Antiquities, was also launched.

Public engagement is a significant feature of twenty-first-century archaeological practice. While more diverse audiences are connecting with the discipline in a multitude of ways, public perceptions of archaeology are still marred by stereotypes. Community excavations of ‘sites’ to discover ‘treasures’ which tell us about the ‘past’ overshadow other forms of public research output and hinder the potential of the discipline to contribute to contemporary society more widely. This paper proposes participatory augering as an active public engagement method that challenges assumptions about the nature of archaeological practice by focusing on interpretation at a landscape-scale. Through exploration of recent participatory augering research by the REFIT Project and Environmental Archaeologist Mike Allen, this paper demonstrates how the public can contribute to active archaeological research by exploring narratives of landscape change. Evaluation of the existing case studies reflects the potential of the approach to engage audiences with new archaeological methods and narratives which have the potential to transform perceptions of the discipline and, through knowledge exchange, drive community-led contributions to contemporary landscape management.

In England's post-Brexit environment, as the nation's approach to cultural landscapes is reassessed, understanding what stakeholders value and how they currently engage with landscape management is likely to be increasingly important. This study explores this at a localised scale. Examining the value of an ecosystems services perspective, it focuses on two case-study landscapes in Gloucestershire. Using interviews, focus groups, mapping tasks and questionnaires it examines how stakeholder values intersect with current policies and practices. Based on this analysis, it suggests the need for greater integration and knowledge exchange between stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of landscape management. It suggests new strategies, such as a centralised e-portal of resources, are required to ensure awareness and dialogue between stakeholders. This study is part of a larger European project comparing how the values of stakeholders in heritage landscapes can be better integrated into cultural landscape management.

The archaeology of the Theban Necropolis is well documented. Under represented in the literature are the studies which deal with the meaning of the site to the multitude of contemporary users who interact with the heritage landscape and with each other in the designated archaeological zone. This article will investigate how different stakeholders engage with the heritage 'space' and invest it with multiple meanings. By exploring the areas of agreement, difference and contradiction, we hope to show how contemporary experiences and future visions for the management of global heritage at the Theban Necropolis can be analogous and simultaneously worlds apart.

Community archaeology seeks to diversify the voices involved in the interpretation of the past. This sub-discipline, one of the fastest growing areas of the field, facilitates mutual education between archaeologists and communities. Wider recognition for the field is, however, hindered by the fact that it lacks a clear methodological structure. In this analysis the various forms in which community archaeology is practised are addressed through six diverse case studies. The underlying principles of these examples are collated through a detailed comparison with the seven-part general methodology proposed by the Community Archaeology Project Quseir, Egypt (CAPQ), with which I have now worked for four years. The Quseir Project offers the most explicit community archaeology methodology published to date.I demonstrate that a shared underlying community approach exists. I then propose an enhanced, wider-reaching methodology for the practice of community archaeology. I conclude that this more explicit methodology is necessary if the sub-discipline is to achieve sincere academic acknowledgement and truly benefit the communities and archaeological research that it represents.