Martyn Jope

During World War II, he temporarily gave up the archaeology and received in 1940 a grant from the Nuffield Foundation for the study of haemoglobins in human blood at the London Hospital in Whitechapel.

[1] In 1949, Jope received a call for a new post as a lecturer of archaeology at Queen's University Belfast at the suggestion of geography Professor Emyr Estyn Evans.

He devoted himself to various parts of the provincial archaeology publications on topics such as the Neolithic Axe trade, metalwork from the Iron Age, the raths and earthworks of the early Christian period, such as the fort of Dunglady, medieval castles and the houses of the plantations of the 18th century.

Until the early 1960s he was one of the main actors in the development of the archaeology of the Middle Ages either by the survey of buildings, by the study of ceramics or by being one of the first teams excavating a medieval city.

His attention then turned to more research on the Iron Age, in particular the completion of a book on the art of this period in the British Isles.

The use of gold in the 3rd century BC and images of humans, animals and plants are also discussed and compared in the whole work amongst each other and with Celtic artefacts.

Weapons, armour, vessels, mirrors, jewellery and horse equipment illustrate the sophistication of Celtic designs.

He expressed the conviction that the social and economic reasons why people have an artefact or a building or used, are an important part of the study.