Research
I am an Assyriologist who focuses on the history of Mesopotamia in the first millennium BC. This was the time of Sargon, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, and Alexander the Great – a time of great political transformations that affected an immense area from the Mediterranean to the Indus. I am particularly interested in the establishment of the Persian Empire in Babylonia and the reactions that this process triggered among different social groups. My ERC Starting Grant project evaluated the Babylonian context of the Judean deportees who returned home after the fall of Babylon to build the Second Temple of Jerusalem. Since January 2017, I head an ERC Consolidator Grant project on the Persian Empire.
CV
Education
2001: PhD in Assyriology, Ghent University, Belgium
1997: MA in Assyriology and Biblical Hebrew, Ghent University, Belgium
Employment
2014: Senior Lecturer in Assyriology, Leiden University
2012: Lecturer in Assyriology, Leiden Unversity
2010: Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern History, University College London
2006: Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern History, VU University Amsterdam
2005: Post-doctoral researcher (Project: “Borsippean Families”), FWF Austria, Vienna University
2003: Post-doctoral researcher in START-project “The Economic History of Babylonia in the First Millennium BC” co-ordinated by Michael Jursa, FWF Austria, Vienna University
2002: Post-doctoral researcher, BOF, Ghent University
Grants and awards
- ERC Consolidator Grant (2017-2022)
- ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant (2009-2015)
- FWF Austria Research Grant (2005-2006)
- BOF Research Grant Ghent University (2002)
- FWO Flanders PhD Research Grant (1997-2001)