Dr Gareth Williams is a historian and archaeologist specialising in the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. He was curator of the exhibitions Vikings: life and legend at the British Museum (2014) and Viking Voyagers at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall (2015-17). He has published extensively on both Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, particularly on the subjects of warfare, coinage and economy and ships. He acts as an academic advisor to the Jorvik Centre, and also has an advisory role on the development of the new Museum of the Viking Age in Oslo, Norway. In 2017-18 Gareth was a Senior Researcher on the Viking Phenomenon research project at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Gareth has lectured at universities and conferences all round the world, and has also led lecture tours of Scandinavia, and lecture cruises of Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Gareth was a curator at the British Museum from 1996 to 2024, and is also the former director of Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, where he led an interdisciplinary research project into the history and archaeology of the castle site from prehistory to the present day. He also edited and co-authored a monograph on a major Viking site at Aldwark in North Yorkshire. In addition to his academic work, Gareth has also worked as an expert witness in a number of police investigations into the illegal sale of antiquities and modern forgeries, one of which was featured on the BBC TV series Expert Witness, and was also the focus of the BBC podcast Fool's Gold. In addition to featuring in these two series, Gareth has appeared in a large number of other documentaries for TV, radio and cinema.
Gareth is currently working on publications on Viking warfare (including the ‘great armies’ of the late 9th century), and on Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman hoards. He also works as a freelance lecturer, and in addition to straightforward historical lectures Gareth gives presentations in character and in full historical costume as a range of figures from the 10th to the 17th centuries.
Gareth's classes for ICE are PowerPoint-based, but will also include the opportunity to handle a mixture of genuine and replica artefacts.
