Professor Peter Cobb Wins Faculty of Arts KE Award

 

September 2026

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Understanding Our Shared Human Past through Archaeology: Multidisciplinary Public Outreach by HKU’s Archaeological Expedition to Armenia​

Archaeologists study the human past through the material remains left behind, from pottery and stone tools, to architecture and landscapes. We conduct fieldwork to find and uncover these remains, through surface survey and excavation. HKU's field research project, called the "Ararat Plain Southeast Archaeological Project (APSAP)," takes place in the South Caucasus country of Armenia, in collaboration with the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography. APSAP has the opportunity to share its research about the human past with the public in many ways. Together with the University of Wisconsin Parkside and the Armenian Heritage Development Foundation, we run a summer educational children's program that has reached about 100 students and teachers in Armenia over several years. We are also developing a tourism management plan to introduce the Vedi River Valley to many audiences, including with an Augmented Reality (AR) mobile app. To reach an international audience, we maintain an active social media presence: https://linktr.ee/apsap. In Hong Kong, we often run public events to introduce archaeology and the past of Armenia to a new audience, including using a Virtual Reality (VR) tour of our site in Armenia. In summer 2026, we taught secondary school students about archaeology through an HKU Academy for the Talented program. 

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