| David Mattingly | |
| Honorific Suffix: | FBA |
| Birth Name: | David John Mattingly |
| Birth Date: | 18 May 1958 |
| Birth Place: | England |
| Nationality: | English |
| Citizenship: | United Kingdom |
| Alma Mater: | University of Manchester |
| Thesis Title: | Tripolitania: A comparative study of a Roman frontier province |
| Thesis Url: | https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.353380 |
| Thesis Year: | 1984 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Barri Jones |
| Discipline: | Ancient history and archaeology |
David John Mattingly, FBA (born 18 May 1958) is an archaeologist and historian of the Roman world. He is currently Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester.
Mattingly's grandfather, Harold Mattingly, was Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, and his father, Harold B. Mattingly, was Professor of Ancient History at Leeds University. He received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in history at the University of Manchester, and later a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the same university, under the supervision of Barri Jones. His doctoral thesis was titled "Tripolitania: A comparative study of a Roman frontier province", and was submitted in 1984.[1] He was then a British Academy Post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, in Oxford until 1989. He was then Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan in the United States. At Leicester University he was first Lecturer, then Reader (1995), and most recently Professor (since 1998).
In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[2]
Mattingly's main area of research is Roman North Africa, especially Libya and Tunisia, though he has also conducted research on Britain, Italy and Jordan. His emphasis has largely been social and economic, and centres on the study of rural settlement, farming technology and the economy; post-colonial approaches to Roman imperialism; Roman military frontiers and the study of native society beyond those frontiers.[3] His most recent book is Imperialism, Power and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire.
He is an active field archaeologist, and is currently directing several expeditions examining the archaeology of the Fazzan and the Ghadames oasis in Libya.