Philip has been working in Rome as a historical archaeologist for the last twenty years. Trained as a byzantinist, he has excavated on numerous sites in England, Greece, Cyprus and Italy. During his doctorate at the Sorbonne, he specialized in the material culture of southern Italy during the Middle Ages. His nine hundred page encyclopedia, entitled Culture Materielle Medievale has been hailed as a classic in its field, bringing to light hundreds of previously unknown words and terms in medieval Latin and Greek that pertain to everyday household objects and paraphernalia.