Louise Blanke

I am specialised in the archaeology of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Egypt and Jordan. I am particularly interested in the emergency of Christianity and Islam and their impact on economy, built environment, and material culture in both urban and rural settings. My published research includes work on bathing culture; monasticism; pilgrimage; religion; sanitation; urbanism; and water supply systems. I am an active field archaeologist with extensive experience from a wide variety of (mainly late antique and early medieval) sites in Jordan, Egypt, Denmark and Qatar. I direct the ongoing Late Antique Jerash Project, which examines the development of a residential neighbourhood in Jarash’s southwest district over the longue durée.

[2025] Blanke, L. Ud med badevandet: Nye arkæologiske studier belyser sociale praksisser i et senantikt badehus i Jerash, Jordan. Sfinx 48(4). [2024] Blanke, L., Bangsgaard, P., McPhillips, S., Pappalardo, R. and Penn, T. ‘Down the drain: reconstructing social practice from the content of two sewers in a late antique bathhouse in Jerash, Jordan’. Journal of Roman Archaeology 37(1): 241-263. [2023] Blanke, L. and Cromwell, J.A., ‘Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine: Past, Present and Future’, in L. Blanke and J.A. Cromwell (eds.), Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine, Cambridge University Press. [2023] Review of O’Connell, E.R. (ed.), 2020, Abydos in the First Millennium AD, British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 9, Leuven, Paris, Bristol, CT: Pe