Assyriology

Associate Professor


Jesper Eidem is since 2018 Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Pisa. 2009-2017 he was General Director of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (Leiden) and the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (Istanbul), and from 2012-2017 Professor (by special appointment) of the Archaeology of Western Asia at the University of Amsterdam. His main research area is the history and archaeology of Northern Mesopotamia in the Bronze and Iron Ages. After his PhD (Copenhagen 1992) he worked for many years at the University of Copenhagen, with shorter appoinments in the Danish Cultural Institute in Damascus (2001-2) and The National Museum of Denmark (2003-4).

A major component of Eidem's research has been study and publication of important archives of Middle Bronze Age cuneiform tablets from Tell Shemshara and Tell Leilan. In a track parallel to linguistic and historical studies he has wide experience with archaeological research from excavations in Denmark, Iraq, and Syria. Since 1993 he has himself organised and directed fieldwork at sites in Syria and Iraq. Currently (since 2012) he directs a major project of archaeological salvage on the Rania Plain in northeastern Iraq.