Dr Ania Kotarba was born in Kraków, Poland where she was educated in Archeology, Ancient History, Anthropology and Comparative Religion Studies at the medieval Jagiellonian University. In 2009 she obtained her MPhil there on the relationships between Cyprus, Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Iron Age. Whilst pursuing her undergraduate degree she sojurned for an exchange programme to the University of Warsaw and later spent a year of her Masters programme as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece where she extended her portfolio to Ancient Art History.

Ania holds a PhD (DPhil) degree from the Oxford University in the UK where she was based at the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology (OCMA) in the School of Archaeology. Her PhD research used tools such as geoarchaeology, geophysics, maritime archaeology, historical archives, spatial analysis and sedimentological techniques with an aim to explore major ancient ports of trade €” with a case study site of Berenike Troglodytica on the Red Sea coast of Egypt €” and associated infilled harbour basins around the coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The results of this thesis lead to a better understanding of human adaptations to €” and interaction with €” the natural environment of the Red Sea (including sea level change in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods) and to elucidate mechanisms of far ­ €distance maritime trade in the Early Historic (Pre ­ €Islamic) period within the wider Mediterranean-Indian Ocean protoglobalised world.

Dr Kotarba has previously held a post of a Lecturer in Archaeology and Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney and a Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Wollongong.

• Maritime Archaeoloy and ancient seafaring
• Ancient and medieval ports of trade
• Coastal and Landscape Archaeology
• Human adaptations to chaning landscapes and environents
• Rise of global economy and ancient globalisation
• Archaeology and History of the Mediterranean and the Middle East from Bronze Age to early Medieval/Islamic period
• Greco-Roman Egypt
• Global aculturation and maritime exchange in the Indian Ocean with specific reference to the Middle East, East Africa, Southern Arabia and South Asia
• Cultural Heritager management
• Cultural Heritage protection and mitigation processes
• UNESCO World Heritage
• Digital Heritage
• Underwater and terrestrial International Cultural Heritage legislation
• Illicit trade of Antiquities