Introducing the Finds Liaison Officers

I am one of the two Finds Liaison Officers in Suffolk and am based in Bury St Edmunds, where the PAS team is hosted by the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service.

- Riccardo Caravello

Introduction

I am one of the two Finds Liaison Officers in Suffolk and am based in Bury St Edmunds, where the PAS team is hosted by the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service.

How and why did I get started in archaeology?

I grew up in a little village in Sicily and my bedroom had a balcony overlooking the Orto Mosaico (the garden of the mosaics), a field on the outskirts of the village where the remains of a Roman villa with mosaic floors were discovered. Since I was a young boy, I have always been fascinated by those ruins and by the ancient stories about my homeland. In fact, I distinctly remember how impressed I was when the village commemorated the 300th anniversary of the earthquake which occurred around the end of the 17th century, which destroyed a large part of the south-eastern areas of Sicily, resulting in the relocation of my village to its current site.

I cultivated that passion from primary school onwards, even creating a very personal Brief Compendium of Egypt, which contained school notes, drawings, and interesting facts about Egyptian archaeology. When the time came to choose a career path, I decided to study the Science of Cultural Heritage at Catania University, in Syracuse (Sicily). There is no denying that living and studying archaeological topics in such a historical city encouraged me to continue my studies further with a Master’s Degree in Archaeology from the University of Bologna. I was most intrigued by the archaeology of the western Roman provinces and the life on the Limes (or boundaries) of the Roman Empire. This prompted my move to the UK, where I worked as a field archaeologist in Scotland and England, before transferring to the PAS.

How did I become a FLO