The inaugural UK Symposium on Islamic Archaeology Identities and Islam will take place at the University of Southampton on April 20th, 2013. Archaeological scholarship has revealed considerable temporal and geographic variation in material expressions of identity within the Islamic world, through architecture, art, crafts, burial and subsistence, as well as in the organisation of trade and exchange. How integral was the uniting force of Islam in the construction of personal, group, and state identity in the past? To what extent can we see identity as being formed locally and diachronically – either in opposition to different external and internal cultural groups, influenced by pre-existing indigenous cultures and contemporary neighbouring states, or resulting from particular political changes?

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