Daniel Alford was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the EX-PATRIA Project (2023-2025). His research within the project focused on the movement of families and individuals in the frontier zones of Armenia during Late Antiquity, in particular in the 5th century.
Drawing on his doctoral work at Oxford, which examined clan and household formation in Late Antique Armenia, Alford brought a prosopographical and socio-cultural lens to the study of cross-border mobility. He explored how Armenia’s divided political status—situated between Roman and Sasanian spheres—influenced strategies of family cohesion and elite agency, including fosterage, marriage alliances, and the pursuit of education across imperial boundaries.
Dan has significantly contributed to the project’s wider goals by working with sources in Classical Armenian and Middle Persian, and by helping to develop the project’s prosopographical datasets. His broader research continues to engage with themes of mobility, integration, and cultural negotiation in the western Iranian world.
Daniel Alford is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project DOSSE – Domestic Servants in Mediterranean Europe (1300–1600), based at the University of Oxford.