Awet Teklehimanot Araya

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College: College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Discipline: Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
Department: College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Research Centre/Unit: Center for Islamic Archaeology

Awet Teklehimanot Araya is an Eritrean archaeologist from Massawa, Eritrea. He is a PhD candidate at the Center for Islamic Archaeology, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. His current research focuses on the Archaeology of the African diaspora in the Gulf (Arabian/Persian), case studies in Bahrain during the period between the 8th-16th c. AD. Awet has an MSc in Archaeological Materials Science from La Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy, and a BA degree in Anthropology and Archaeology from the College of Arts and Social Sciences, Eritrea. 

While at the Centre for Islamic Archaeology, Awet has been actively involved in archaeological projects in Bahrain, 2019 to the present, including his own fieldwork where he designed and successfully executed excavations at sites of potential African affiliation (Jeblat Hebshi, Zinj, and Bejawiah) in Bahrain, December 2020.

Prior to his candidacy at the Centre for Islamic archaeology in September 2018, he successfully completed an MSc in Archaeological Material Sciences at three European Universities (Evora, Portugal; Thessaloniki, Greece; and La Sapienza, Rome, Italy) in the years between 2016-2018.

During his time in Eritrea, after completion of his BA degree in 2011, he worked as a Graduate Assistant at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Eritrea. He was also a full-time field archaeologist and museum curator at the Northern Red Sea Regional Museum in Massawa, Eritrea, between 2014-2016.