Prominent Aerial Archaeologist Appointed Member of the Order of Australia
On January 26, David Leslie Kennedy, Member (1986–87, 2004) and frequent Visitor in the School of Historical Studies, was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) as part of the nation's Australia Day Honors. One of the highest honors that Australia can grant a citizen, Kennedy received the award for his "significant service to archaeology as a researcher and academic."
Kennedy's interests lie in the Roman Near East. He has made seminal contributions to research on the Roman army and military installations, landscape archaeology, and Aerial Archaeology. Since 1976, he has conducted varied archaeological fieldwork, ranging from survey projects in the Southern Hauran and the hinterland of Jarash in Jordan, to excavation at Zeugma in Turkey.
Another of Kennedy's many notable contributions to the discipline of archaeology was his establishment of the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME) in 1978. The project is designed to discover, record, monitor, and document settlement history in the Near East. Its archive currently consists of over 115,000 (mainly aerial) images and maps, illuminating the ancient past in hard-to-access areas. Kennedy's work with APAAME led to the creation of an annual program of active Aerial Archaeology in Jordan in 1997, flying with the Royal Jordanian Air Force. In 2017, a similar program was launched in northwest Saudi Arabia, flying with private helicopters. Kennedy's aerial efforts, including his use of Google Earth as a key research tool, has also seen him featured in a Google Search Story video.
Kennedy will return to the Institute in May 2025 to conduct research into early western travelers in the Levant, with a focus on the unpublished travel journals of Mary Prime and her brother James Hammond Trumbull, a friend of Mark Twain. Their private observations can be set alongside the (sometimes fantastic) published accounts of Mary’s husband, William Cowper Prime, a key nineteenth century benefactor of Princeton University's department of art history. The journals and commentary on their travels, including the scores of other Westerners that they encountered, will be published by Archaeopress in Oxford. During his time at IAS, Kennedy will also be preparing a dated Latin graffito from the Hedjaz region of Western Asia for publication.
The full Australia Day 2025 Honors List can be found on the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia website.
