Maria Gajewska

University of Cambridge

The Many Worlds of the Western Indian Ocean: politics, culture and environment in medieval maritime trade

I received the bursary during the write-up year of my PhD. It enabled me to complete three chapters of my dissertation: on the built environment, decorative material culture and dietary practices as visible through archaeological evidence on eleven case-study sites across the western Indian Ocean littoral. I used published and unpublished archaeological data, contextualised through primary sources (mainly in Arabic), to assess the influence of medium- and long-distance maritime trade connections on these varied aspects of life at the sites. In 2024, I presented some results of this research at the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art annual conference in Lyon.