Beatrice Leal is an honorary lecturer in the Department of Art History and World Art Studies at the University of East Anglia, a trustee of the Hungate Medieval Art centre in Norwich (UK), and an associate of the Manar al-Athar image archive at the University of Oxford. Most of her research is on the material culture of the late antique, early medieval, and early Islamic Mediterranean and surrounding regions. She has a particular interest in non-figural imagery, and in the cultural associations and uses of materials.