About ISMEO

Alessandro Bausi (Florence 1963) has been a full professor of Ethiopic Studies (‘Äthiopistik’) at the Asien-Afrika-Institut of the University of Hamburg since September 2009 and director of the Hiob-Ludolf-Zentrum für Äthiopistik. He is the editor of the journal Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, the Supplements series to Aethiopica, which he founded, and the series Aethiopistische Forschungen (Harrassowitz); he co-edits the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin, which he founded. Co-editor of the fourth volume and main editor of the fifth and final volume of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (2010-2014), he chaired the program ‘Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies’ (2009-2014, European Science Foundation). He is co-director of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts: Materiality, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’ (2019-2025). He is a member of the Academia Europaea, the Accademia Ambrosiana, the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, and the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg. In 2005, he received the Giorgio Maria Sangiorgi Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei for African Studies. He has extensively published on the Ethiopic and Eritrean textual, manuscript, and epigraphic tradition, to which he has also contributed field research, focusing on the late-antique and medieval periods, Greek-to-Ethiopic translations (with discovery and publication of new important unpublished texts), canonical, hagiographical, and liturgical collections, and critical-textual methodological issues.

Michela Clemente is a Tibetologist, currently working as a researcher at the Department ISO – Italian Institute of Oriental Studies (“Sapienza” University). From 1998 to 2011 she collaborated with IsIAO. Since 2017 she has worked at the re-opening of the “IsIAO Library” – African and Asian Collections Room (National Central Library of Rome), and she is currently the Scientific Responsible of the Tucci Tibetan Collection. Since 2010 she has collaborated with the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU, University of Cambridge). In 2013 she was awarded with the Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship for her project Tibetan Book Evolution and Technology (TiBET). She was the co-curator of the exhibition Buddha’s Word: The Life of Books in Tibet and Beyond (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge). She is currently an affiliated researcher at MIASU and a Life member of Clare Hall (University of Cambridge). Since 2019 she teaches at the Central Institute for Archives and Book Pathology (ICPAL). She has published extensively on Tibetan book culture, history and literature and is currently involved in several projects with different institutions.

Roberto Ciarla, archaeologist, holds a Ph.D. in ‘Languages, Cultures, and Eastern Societies’ from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He graduated in ‘Chinese Language and Culture’ from the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East-Is.M.E.O. and the Beijing Language Institute. He has participated in archaeological research projects in Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, and Thailand. He was the team leader of the World Bank project ‘Sichuan Province Cultural Heritage Strategic Masterplan,’ and a member of the coordinating group and lecturer in the Italy-China cooperation project ‘Establishment of the Xi’an Center for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage’ (Shaanxi Province, PRC) funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. From 1982 to 2017, he served at the former National Museum of Oriental Art ‘G. Tucci’ (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities) as curator of East Asian art collections. From 1987 to 2020, he was co-director of the Italo-Thai project ‘Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project.’ His main research fields include the prehistory and protohistory of East Asia and mainland Southeast Asia; material culture and its production processes; modes and means of circulation/exchange of technologies and goods between China and mainland Southeast Asia.

Graduated in Archaeology and Art History of Ancient Near East at the University of Roma “La Sapienza”, since 1985 she is a researcher at CNR – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali (now Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale) and head of the Institute’s library. Her researches focused on the Bronze Age cultures of Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. She was a team member of many expeditions abroad, in the Near East, Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, Iran, and Italy, organized by “La Sapienza” University, IsMEO, CNR, and CNRS. She was the director of the laboratory coordinated by CNR and Shiraz University, titled “The Face of Fars. An Archaeological Survey of the Main Sasanian Monuments in the Cradle of Empire.” She is expert on management and computerisation of archaeological data and database elaboration. Indeed she created many digital archives for different expeditions in Asia, with integrated data from advanced remote sensing technology, geophysical methodologies, GIS, and numerical models. She is co-author with M. Vidale of the book “Lapis Lazuli Bead Making at Shahr-i Sokhta,” that in 2019 won the World Award for Book of the Year of Islamic Republic of Iran. She also focuses her research on the perception of the exotic in Italian comic art.

Giorgio Banti, born in Rome (1949), has studied in the Universities of Pisa and of Rome “La Sapienza”. He has served as a full professor since 1997 till his retirement at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, where he has taught General and Historical Linguistics and, since 2009, also Somali Language and Literature. From November 2014 to October 2019, he has also been Vice- Rector of that University. Before coming to Naples, he taught in Rome, Cassino and Potenza. Besides these institutions, he has also taught in several other universities outside his country, such as those of Hamburg, of Bayreuth, of Zurich, of Addis Ababa, of Djibouti, and the former National University of Somalia in Mogadishu. He has been in the Somali-speaking countries of the Horn of Africa, as well as in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Northern Sudan for doing fieldwork in linguistics, oral literatures, and Ajami manuscripts and publications since 1979. Since 1997 he has been a member of the Scientific Board of the IsIAO (Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient) for several times. He has published monographic studies and articles on topics that range from Cushitic languages and literatures (especially Somali, Saho and Oromo), to Cushitic historical linguistics, Old Harari language and literature, Nara language and literature. In addition to these topics related to the Horn of Africa, he has also published on Old Indic, Ancient Greek and Classical Arabic syntax. For some years, he has also worked on LADO, a specific field of forensic linguistics, with a Dutch company. On June 20, 2001, he has been given the Award “Giorgio Maria Sangiorgi” for the History and Ethnology of Africa by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.