The project brings together sixteen researchers and engineers based at CNRS (Paris, Lyon), CNR-ISPC (Milano) and University of Pisa. The team combines diverse skills in history, archaeology, epigraphy, palaeography, philology, geomatics and geography.
Prof. Mounir Arbach
CNRS, UMR 5133 Archéorient (Lyon)
Mounir Arbach is a Senior research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He is a specialist of languages and history of pre-Islamic South-Arabia. He has been taking part to French and Italian archaeological missions in Yemen (1993-2009) and Saudi Arabia (2006-2019). He is currently heading the Saudi-French archaeological Mission in the region of al-Fāw (Saudi Arabia). He authored more than 10 books and 100 papers about the history of ancient Arabia.
Prof. Alessandra Avanzini
University of Pisa
Alessandra Avanzini was full professor of Semitic Philology at the University of Pisa. Her field of research are the Ancient South Arabian languages. Her study of Qatabanic inscriptions (Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions – Qatabanic Inscriptions, Pisa, 2004) brought to the attention of the scientific community for the first time the richness of this documentation in linguistic-grammatical terms as well as in the historical-cultural data which emerged.
She was trying to overturn the marginalization of South Arabia within the Ancient Near East history, and to promote a new role and importance of South Arabian history and culture (By land and by sea. A history of South Arabia before Islam recounted from inscriptions, Rome, 2017).
In the early 80’s she participated to the joint mission of Universities of Florence and Venice in northern Yemen. She was a member of the French-Yemenite mission in Qataban. Since 1996 she is director of the IMTO (Italian Mission To Oman) that has been working on the sites of Sumhuram and Salut.
Dr Olivier Barge
CNRS, UMR 5133 Archéorient (Lyon)
Olivier Barge is a research engineer at the CNRS, based at the Archéorient branch in Jalès (Ardèche). As a geographer and cartographer, he uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to answer archaeological questions or, more generally, in the context of research on the past. The aim is to give an account of the spatial dimension of these issues, particularly through cartography. His work is based on fieldwork; he has participated in numerous missions in the Near and Middle East (Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Oman, Armenia, etc.).
Dr Anne Benoist
CNRS, UMR 5133 Archéorient (Lyon)
A. Benoist is an archaeologist at the CNRS. She specialises in the study of the Iron Age settlement process, territories and cultic/cultural practices in South-East Arabia. She participated in the excavations carried out by the French Archaeological Mission in the Emirate of Sharjah on the sites of Mleiha and al-Madam. She then directed the archaeological research at Bithnah and Masafi, in the Emirate of Fujairah.
A. Benoist has also conducted archaeological excavations at Makaynûn, Hadramawt (Yemen). She has recently extended her work to East Africa, first in East Tigray (Ethiopia), where she co-directed the French mission and where she studied the pre-aksumite and aksumite settlement; then in Sudan, on the sites of Muweis and El-Hassa, within the framework of the Louvre Museum's mission (dir. V. Rondot and M. Millet).
A. Benoist was awarded the Grand Prix de l’archéologie of the Simone and Cino del Duca Foundation in 2019.
Dr Guillaume Charloux
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Graduated from the Ecole of the Louvre Museum and from the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, Guillaume Charloux received his PhD in archeology from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2006. Since 2007, he is a research engineer at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, UMR 8167), and he has been directing the archaeological and epigraphic mission ‘Oasis of Desert Arabia’ (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) since 2010. Within this institutional framework, he has been studying several major sites of Arabia: al-Bad' (codirector S. Sahlah, KSU), the Camel Site (codirectors M. Guagnin, Max Planck Institute & A. AlSharekh, KSU) and Dûmat al-Jandal (codirector R. Loreto, L'Orientale). He also coordinates archaeological research projects in Karnak (Egypt, CFEETK USR 3172 CNRS/MoA). His research interests focus mainly on the formation and evolution of oases in Arabia through time as well as on the origins of the Karnak temples.
Annamaria De Santis
University of Pisa
Annamaria De Santis holds a Master degree in Archaeology at the Univerity of Pisa and a post-graduate specialization in Librarian Studies at the Vatican Library. From 2008 to 2017, she has been working at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and the University of Pisa, as scientific advisor and temporary research fellow. Being involved in several national and European research projects (Fortuna Visiva of Pompeii, CALLAS - FP6-2005-IST-5, Da Cavalcaselle a Brandi - FIRB 2006, CARARE – FP7-CIP ICT PSP, Arabia Antica, MEDINA - ENPI - CBCMED programme, DASI – FP7-ERC advanced grant), she has implemented her expertise in the field of digital archaeology and epigraphy, in particular on digital libraries, gazetteers, metadata standards. She is also acquainted with management of research project, having carried out both technical and financial coordination, networking and fundraising.
Solène Marion de Procé
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Solène is an archaeologist specialized in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula with a focus on pagan temples and the Red Sea. After a PhD on South Arabian religion, she now heads the Saudi-French Farasan Islands archaeological project where the team excavates Ancient South Arabian, Roman and Late Antique remains. She contributes to the Ancient Arabia project as an author and editor for the Thematic Dictionary, and as a data manager and author for the Atlas.
Prof. Laïla Nehmé
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Prof. Dr. Laïla Nehmé graduated from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. She received a PhD in archaeology and a Habilitation thesis in epigraphy. She is currently a senior research fellow (professor) at the French National Center for Scientific Research. She works on Nabataean archaeology (Petra, Hegra, etc.) and Nabataean inscriptions as well as on the development of the Nabataean script into Arabic. Since 2002, she has been co-directing, with a Saudi partner, the Madâin Sâlih Archaeological Project in Saudi Arabia. She has also participated to other fieldwork projects in Saudi Arabia (Farasan islands, al-ʿUla-al-Wajh survey) as well as in Syria and Jordan. She published several books, including a two-volumes book on the Nabataean tombs of Hegra (2015).
Jérôme Norris
Université de Lorraine, EA 1132 HISCANT-MA, Nancy
Jérôme Norris is a historian and epigraphist specializing in the study of the pre-Islamic history of North Arabia from the Iron Age to the advent of Islam, the Nabataean civilization, and the languages and scripts of ancient North Arabia (Ancient North Arabian scripts, Imperial Aramaic and Nabataean). His research interests include the identification of ancient tribal territories, the chronology of ancient kingdoms and local powers, the geographical distribution of pre-Islamic North Arabian languages and scripts, and the use of GIS tools for epigraphic studies. After obtaining a Master's degree in Ancient History at the University of Perpignan and writing a dissertation on the relations between the "Arabs" and the Greco-Roman world, he undertook a doctoral thesis at the University of Lorraine on the tribal geography of northwestern Arabia from the 6th century BCE to the end of the 3rd century CE. In parallel, he collaborated on several archaeological projects in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Dr Alessia Prioletta
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Alessia Prioletta is a research fellow at the CNRS. She completed her PhD at the University of Florence and did postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Pisa. From 2012 to 2015, she held a research position at this institution in the framework of the ERC project "Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions" (DASI). Her research interests include the languages and cultures of the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula, as well as Semitic linguistics and philology. From 2007 to 2010, she worked in museums in Yemen, resulting in a monograph publishing the collections of three museums in the Dhamār region (2013). Since 2014, she has been conducting epigraphic surveys in the Ḥimā region (Najrān province) and other areas of Saudi Arabia with the Saudi-French Archaeological and Epigraphic Mission to Najrān (MAFSN). Since 2020, she is the coordinator of the team working on the Ancient South Arabian Languages within the ANR project "Ancient and Modern Languages of South Arabia. A cross-disciplinary approach to a linguistic area" (ALMAS).
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Prof. Christian J. Robin
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France (Paris)
Prof. Christian Robin is an emeritus Senior research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, where he served as documentalist and researcher since 1970. His research interest is the history of Arabia from Antiquity to the early centuries of Islam.
He is a current member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, since 2005, and was honored to receive a Festschrift Sabaean Studies in the same year. He is Fellow of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (Berlin) and the former Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome). He is awarded the Légion d'Honneur (2008).
Prof. Robin is the founder and Director of the French Center of Research in Sanaa “Centre français d'Études yéménites” (Yemen, 1982-1986). He directed several research institutions: Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman (CNRS, Aix-Marseille , 1997-2000), Laboratoire des Études Sémitiques Anciennes (CNRS, Aix-Marseille I, II & III, 2001-2006), Orient & Méditerranée (CNRS, Paris IV, Paris I, EPHE and Collège de France 2006-2010), as well as Research Programs: ‘Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions (10th Century BC — 10th Century AD’ (INTAS – Russian, British, French and Italian teams, 1994-1996), ‘Incense Long Distance Trade, Pre-Islamic Inscriptions and Antiquities of Hadramawt’ (INTAS – Russian, French German and Italian teams, 2001-2004), ‘De l’Antiquité à l’Islam’ (French National Research Agency (ANR), 2005-2009), ‘Coranica’ (French ANR / German DFG, 2011-2014). He also led and directed two Archaeological teams: the French archaeological Mission in Yemen (1978-2008), the French archaeological Mission in Najrân, Saudi Arabia (2006-2019).
Dr Jérôme Rohmer
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Jérôme Rohmer is a research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, specializing in the archaeology of the Southern Levant and North Arabia from the Iron Age to the eve of Islam. He wrote his PhD thesis (2013) on the settlement history of Southern Syria from the Iron Age to the Early Roman period. In the Arabian Peninsula, he worked with the Mada’in Salih Archaeological Project between 2008 and 2017, and has been directing excavations on the Pre-Islamic caravan city of Thāj (CNRS/SCTH) since 2016. In 2019, he launched the Dadan Archaeological Project (CNRS/RCU/KSU), focusing on the major Iron Age site in the region of al-ʿUla, northwest Saudi Arabia.
Dr Irene Rossi
CNR-ISPC (Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale), Milano
Irene Rossi is a research fellow at the Institute for Heritage Sciences of the Italian National Research Council. She holds a PhD in Semitic Philology and her researches have focused on the Ancient South Arabian epigraphy, with a specific interest for the Minaic inscriptions and the religion of pre-Islamic Arabia. As a parallel line of research, she studies the application of information technologies to the study of ancient texts and objects, focusing on Digital Epigraphy. She is the scientific coordinator of DASI - Digital Archive for the study of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions, and currently the Italian partner of the ANR-funded project MAPARABIA. She has been lecturer of Ancient South Arabian epigraphy at the University of Pisa and at the UCL-Qatar. She is member of the committees of the international Seminar for Arabian Studies and of the international journal Archeologia e Calcolatori.
Dr Jérémie Schiettecatte
CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (Paris)
Jérémie Schiettecatte is a research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. He holds a PhD in Near-Eastern archaeology from the Sorbonne University (Paris). His current interests lay in the archaeology and history of the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa from the Bronze Age to the Late Antiquity. Since 2000, he has been working in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. He directed the Saudi-French Archaeological Mission in al-Kharj (Saudi Arabia) from 2011 to 2016. Since 2020, he is co-heading the French Archaeological Mission in Eastern Tigray (Ethiopia). He directed several research programs: “EmOAD – Emergence des oasis de l’Arabie déserte” (Sorbonne University) (2014-16) and “MAPARABIA — Mapping Ancient Arabia for enhancing knowledge and shifting paradigms” (National Research Agency, 2018-23). He authored 12 books and more than 80 scientific papers about ancient Arabia.
http://www.orient-mediterranee.com/spip.php?article150
https://cnrs.academia.edu/JSchiettecatte
Prof. Paul A. Yule
Heidelberg University
Paul Alan Yule is an archaeologist who specialised on the prehistory of Oman and Yemen. Now retired from teaching, he was lecturer (1990–95) and later außerplanmäßiger professor at Heidelberg University (1995–2017). Yule received his PhD from New York University in and habilitation from Heidelberg University. Since 1982 Yule's fieldwork focusses on the central provinces of the Sultanate of Oman, about which he contributed studies on ancient metal-working, as well as the funerary archaeology of the Early and Late Iron Ages. Yule led significant projects, including the German Mining Museum’s Samad project in Oman (1987–91) and Heidelberg University’s archaeological fieldwork at the Ḥimyarite capital of Ẓafār in Yemen (1998–2010). Significant academic publications include (as main author) N. Al-Jahwari – P. Yule – Kh. Douglas – B. Pracejus – M. al-Belushi – A. T. ElMahi, The Early Iron Age metal hoard from the Al Khawd area (Sultan Qaboos University) Sultanate of Oman, 7, (2021); Toward an identity-archaeology of the Samad period population (Sultanate of Oman) (2018); and Late Antique Arabia: Ẓafār, Capital of Ḥimyar, rehabilitation of a ‘decadent’ society, excavations of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 1998–2010 in the highlands of the Yemen (2013).