Paul Wordsworth is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford specialising in the archaeology of the medieval Caucasus and Central Asia, with a particular interest on the northeastern fringes of the early Islamic world. He is currently directing two archaeological projects: one explores the landscape of a provincial Abbasid capital city in Azerbaijan, the other is with the Metropolitan Museum, New York, examining the emergence of a medieval Silk Road town in the desert of Turkmenistan. His forthcoming book, Moving in the Margins: Desert Travel and Power in Medieval Central Asia, explores the complex relationship between movement, trade, politics and society that lies behind the development of medieval Islamic networks of travel in the region.
He is a specialist on the Silk Road, the Caucasus and Central Asia, trade and desert travel.
