Phd in PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT
WORLD

email: franco.dagostino@uniroma1.it
phone: +39-328-0342377
building: Marco Polo
room: Stanza 321

Franco D’Agostino is Full Professor of Assyriology at Sapienza University of Rome, where he currently serves as acting Director of the Department – Italian Institute of Oriental Studies. His research focuses on the languages and civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, with particular attention to Sumerian and Akkadian, the administrative documentation of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and Mesopotamian literary traditions, including the Epic of Gilgamesh and Assyro-Babylonian humorous literature. He was trained at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, where he obtained a PhD in Philological Sciences of Ancient Western Asia and a post-doctoral fellowship in Sumerology. He also conducted research at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and at the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg. For many years he has taught courses in Sumerian and Akkadian grammar, cuneiform palaeography, and the cultural history of the Ancient Near East. Alongside his philological research, he carries out extensive archaeological fieldwork. He is Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission at the site of Eridu (southern Iraq) and has directed the excavations at Abu Tbeirah, contributing to the study of early urban development and socio-economic organization in third-millennium-BC Mesopotamia. He has also coordinated international projects for the cataloguing and conservation of epigraphic heritage in Iraq and Iran. He is responsible for research projects funded by international institutions, including the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and has directed conservation interventions on major monuments of the city of Ur. He also plays a significant editorial role as Editor-in-Chief of Rivista degli Studi Orientali and Oriens Antiquus – Series Nova. Author of numerous monographs and hundreds of scholarly articles, his work makes a substantial contribution to the reconstruction of the social, economic, and cultural history of early Mesopotamian societies. In 2026 he was awarded honorary citizenship of the Province of Dhi Qar (southern Iraq).