Dr Stefania Ermidoro

Using primary sources, particularly clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing, Dr Ermidoro mainly works on the cultural and material history of first millennium B.C. Mesopotamia. She also investigates the rediscovery of the ancient Near Eastern cultures in modern times, an emerging field of research based on the identification, study and evaluation of unpublished or unexploited archival materials.

Dr Ermidoro's research while in the UK aims are to investigate some hitherto unknown aspects of Austen Henry Layard's life (an archaeologist, collector and politician of the Victorian Age), through an archive that has been recently acquired by Newcastle University and that has not been investigated yet. This collection has considerable historical value because it contains evidence of Layard’s activities as ambassador to Madrid and Constantinople, as well as of his experience as an archaeologist in the Near East.