Sarah Hitchens
Postdoctoral Research Associate

Profile

Biography

Sarah specialises in archaeological textiles and textile tools from Lower Nubia. Her focus has been the textiles and textile tools from
Qasr Ibrim, a site in Lower Nubia. She has also worked on textile remains and imprints on the back of clay sealings from Heit el-Ghurab,
Giza, Egypt. Currently, she is working on textile remains and imprints on gypsum burials as part of the Seeing the Dead project.

Sarah has excavated in Egypt, Mexico, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. She received her PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2023.

Career

Researcher

Research

Projects

Seeing the Dead

Research group(s)

Roman, medieval and historical 
Experimental archaeology and artefact studies 

Available PhD research projects

• Jessica is open to hearing from PhD applicants in the area of palaeoproteomics. 

External activities

Memberships

Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA)

Invited talks and conferences

Hitchens, Sarah 2026 Textile Remains and Imprints. Seeing the Dead: New Insights into Roman Gypsum Burials in Yorkshire. Seeing the
Dead Workshop, York, UK.

Hitchens, Sarah, Witsell, Ali 2025 A view of the back: textile impressions on clay sealings from Giza (c. 2613 to 2494 BC). The 9th
International Purpureae Vestes Symposium, Lisbon, Portugal.

Hitchens, Sarah 2022. A diachronic and holistic analysis of fibre production, spinning, and textiles at Qasr Ibrim, Nubia, from the
Meroitic period through to Ottoman empire (c. 350 BC-AD 1812). Poster at the 8th International Purpureae Vestes Symposium, Athens, Greece.

Hitchens, Sarah 2024 ‘Roman’ textiles from Qasr Ibrim. The 30th European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting, Rome, Italy. 

Hitchens, Sarah 2022 Qasr Ibrim: an overview of its tools and textiles. The International Workshop on Current Research in Textile
Archaeology along the Nile, Centre for Textile Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.