HFF Scholar Naseem Raad successfully completed his PhD

Congratulations Naseeem on successfully completing your PhD at the University of Southampton!

Naseem Raad is a Lebanese maritime archaeologist focused on maritime trade and economic systems. Naseem’s PhD dissertation, titled ‘Roman Beirut: An Analysis of Economic Systems and Maritime Commercial Networks’, presents a case study to better characterise a port system socio-politically and economically. In this work, Naseem breaks down the supply chain of olive oil and wine in the Roman colony of Beirut, and traces the products’ distribution throughout the eastern Mediterranean. This is done methodically through assessing the source of the product at vineyards and olive groves in the hinterland of the colony, outlining processing centers where wine and oil were manufactured, recreating terrestrial routes to the port city, characterising the packaging and loading of the products as cargo, and tracing their subsequent transportation to other Roman ports in the eastern Mediterranean. The methodology used in this work is unique and challenges previous socio-economic approaches and literature, and can also be applied to other port cities. The ultimate goal is to shed light on the development of economic rationale through a critical comparison of economies across time and space.

Naseem is currently the Academic Coordinator of the HFF-funded Marine Sciences and Culture program at the American University of Beirut. He lectures for two MSCU courses (MSCU 201 and MSCU 204), and manages all activities related to the development of the program generally. He also participates in archaeological fieldwork in Lebanon, including post-processing and publication for projects sponsored by the Honor Frost Foundation, such as the Kharayeb project in southern Lebanon.