Charles Manser Daniels, M.A.

Charles Daniels was born on 10 August 1932 in Gosforth and educated at Newcastle Royal Grammar School and King's College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then part of the University of Durham, where he read modern history and came under the influence of Ian Richmond. Although Daniels was based in the north-east for the whole of his career, he was one of the most travelled British archaeologists of his generation, exploring the Roman empire from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates and from north Germany to the Sahara desert. After graduation, as Sir James Knott Research Student at King's College, he began excavation of the Roman bath-house at Red House, Corbridge and in 1958 of the Roman mausoleum at Shordon Brae to the west of Corbridge with John Gillam, from whom he took over directorship of the dig six years later. Also in 1958, John Ward-Perkins, Director of the British School at Rome, invited Daniels to undertake the excavation of the major late Roman-early medieval rural site at Santa Cornelia; and, momentously, he made his first visit to Libya. With Dr David Smith and Lady (Olwen) Brogan he visited Ghirza and travelled southwards into the Fezzan, an expedition which excited his interest in the Garamantes. A major project ensued, lasting from 1965 to 1977, in which he explored the archaeology and history of the Wadi el Agial, the heartland of the ancient kingdom of the Garamantes, and established a firm chronology of the early capital of Zinchechra, mapping the promontory overlooking the later capital of Germa (Garama). His findings were published in The Garamantes of Southern Libya in 1970 and his contribution to the archaeology of Libya was recognized by his election as Chairman of the Society for Libyan Studies from 1978-83. Unfortunately, political relations between Libya and the United Kingdom declined, excavation became fraught with difficulties and Daniels concentrated on excavation in his home territory of northern Britain, which had not been neglected during his work in Libya. He had been appointed assistant keeper at the Museum of Antiquities at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1962, moving to the newly created department of archaeology in 1972, where he was successively senior lecturer, 1980, assistant senior tutor in arts 1982-7, and keeper of the Museum of Antiquities and head of the department of archaeology 1990-4. In 1975 he began the near-complete excavation of the fort at Wallsend at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall, which was to extend over ten seasons. The work on the later barracks was particularly important as no fort of the third and fourth centuries had hitherto been investigated so thoroughly. From 1974 to 1984 he worked concurrently at Housesteads where, in collaboration with John Gillam and Jim Crow, he completed the excavation of the north-east corner of the Roman fort for English Heritage. His analysis of barrack blocks at Housesteads marked a new phase for the interpretation of late Roman military practice and will be published posthumously. He edited the 13th edition of Collingwood Bruce's Handbook to the Roman Wall, (1978), which itself was partially up-dated in his Handbook of the Eleventh Pilgrimage of Hadrian's Wall, (1989). Looking to Africa again, Daniels led the pioneering excavations at Soba in the Sudan with Derek Welsby in 1981-83, and published jointly with Welsby Soba: archaeological research at a medieval capital on the Blue Nile in 1991. He was a popular guide and lecturer on the Cunard Mediterranean and Swan Hellenic tours, a first-rate photographer of archaeological sites, music lover and cat lover, and it is a matter for great regret that he died only six months after retiring from teaching, when he had planned to resume his travels and investigations of Roman Africa. He died on l September 1996.