Born 1990, I’m an Anglo-German Assyriologist, Near Eastern archaeologist, translator, and writer (not necessarily in that order, certainly not at the same time). I grew up in Buckinghamshire, England and read Archaeology and Anthropology at Homerton College, Cambridge before escaping to Heidelberg where I completed a master’s in Assyriology and Semitic Languages. Soon after, I scarpered again to Tübingen where I was a doctoral research fellow in the Collaborative Research Centre “ResourceCultures” and wrote a thesis on why the Neo-Assyrian Empire (a big, nasty Early Iron Age state) came into existence and expanded, emerging from the whole business in January 2019.

During all of this, I’ve additionally worked as an archaeologist in England, Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Sicily. My current academic projects include the reconstruction and republication of a Neo-Assyrian rock inscription left in the Iraqi Kurdish foothills by Tiglath-Pileser III, the translation of a strange Babylonian epic composition about campaigning in the Zagros, various bits and bobs about Assyrian kings and historical geography, and an article on the early history of (non-venereal) syphilis.

Recently, I had the incredible fortune to win the Travel Stipend of the German Archaeological Institute (Reisestipendium des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts), a prize permitting young researchers of the ancient world to travel for a year visiting archaeological sites, which is the reason for this entire blog.

Apart from that, I’ve translated two rather hefty, fascinating books into English, these being “The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth” (2018, with Brian McNeil) by Stefan M. Maul and “God’s Body: Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Images of God” (in press) by Christoph Markschies in their Anglophone incarnations. I’m currently translating another work on the appearance of the Neolithic in the Balkans which I trust will also prove a corker.

When I have the chance to breathe, I tend to immediately smoke, order a pint, and work frantically on my interminable novel. Otherwise, I love English, German, and French literature (this time most likely in that order), any other language I can learn, cooking, old movies, vintage suits, Baroque music, hip-hop, and analogue photography. I desperately miss my Olivetti.