Board of Directors

Born in Latronico (Province of Potenza). Degree in law from the University of Naples “Federico II”. Professional journalist. Brussels ANSA correspondent from 1967 to 1975, then special foreign policy envoy of the same agency until 1989. From then until 1992, spokesman of the 5-party government (DC, PSI, PSDI, PLI and PRI) led by Giulio Andreotti. Council of Ministers Presidency representative on the board of IsMEO. Member of the IsIAO board of directors, appointed vice-president in 2008. Author of numerous articles and essays, he has published among others Cento punture di spillo, (Rome, Memori 2005) and The Islamic Kaleidoscopeon Islamic fundamentalism (Il caleidoscopio islamico, Rome, IsIAO 2006).

Anna Filigenzi is Associate Professor, Art History and Archaeology of India at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Since 1984 she has been a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan and since 2003 director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan. She is the author of numerous publications on the archaeology and art history of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, disciplines which she also teaches. Fields of research: Buddhist iconography and architecture, especially of the Gandharic and post-Gandaric periods; cultural contacts between northern Pakistan, Kashmir, the Western Himalayas and Xinjiang, with particular regard to the development and circulation of forms of visual art and the interconnections between religious culture, politics and civil society.

Sergio Ferdinandi (Sedan 1963) has a degree in Christian Archaeology and masters in Medieval Archaeology and Topography from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. General manager in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, during his career he served in the General Defence Staff and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, holding positions in the government’s Legal and Legislative Affairs Department and the cabinet of the Public Function Ministry. Specialist in Crusader and Byzantine oriental archaeology and military architecture, he is the author of numerous publications. He has participated with “La Sapienza” and the Cultural Heritage Ministry in numerous archaeological excavation, investigation and survey projects in Europe and Middle East. A lecturer and frequent speaker at national and international conferences, he is a specialist on the Italian National UNESCO Commission and a member of various international archaeological societies and institutions. Since 2019 is a member of the Consiglio Superiore per i beni e le attività culturali e paesaggistici of the Ministry of Cultural
Heritage and Activities and Tourism.

Andrea Manzo is professor of Ethiopian and Nubian archaeology and ancient history at the Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo of the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, that he chaired from 2020 to 2023. He got the Certificat International d’Archéologie Africaine in the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1991 and a scholarship from the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche from 1992 to 1993. He got his PhD from the Istituto Universitario Orientale in 1998. In 2003 he was awarded the prize Giorgio Maria Sangiorgi for the history and ethnography of Africa by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Since 2018 he is a member of the Board of the International Society of Nubian Studies. He is directing the Archaeological Expeditions of “L’Orientale” and ISMEO in Egypt and Sudan and codirecting the one in Ethiopia with Luisa Sernicola. His research focus on: cultural and economic interactions in ancient northeastern Africa; origins and development of social hierarchy in ancient northeastern Africa; adoption and adaptation of iconographies, styles and ideological exogenous traits in ancient northeastern Africa; peopling and history of the peripheric regions, with specific reference to the Eastern Desert and to the Red Sea coastal areas; man-environment dynamics and the emerging of social hierarchy in ancient northeastern Africa. He authored more than one hundred fifty publications. They range from Nubian and Ethiopian to Egyptian archaeology, also touching the computer applications to archaeology (see Academia.edu; Researchgate.net, and UNORA-Iris, the research catalogue of the Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale).

Chiara Zazzaro is Associate Professor of Maritime Archaeology at the University of Naples L’Orientale, where she teaches Maritime and Underwater Archaeology and Maritime Archaeology of the Indian Ocean. She graduated in 2002 and received her PhD in 2006 from the same university, and subsequently carried out research at the University of Exeter within the MARES project. From 2014 to 2018, she led the “Archaeology and Ethnography of the Red Sea” project, funded through the Rita Levi Montalcini programme. Her research focuses on the maritime archaeology and ethnography of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, with particular attention to ancient and traditional shipbuilding techniques, shipwrecks, ports, and maritime communities. She has conducted fieldwork in Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Djibouti, and Indonesia, taking part, among other projects, in the excavations at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis and Adulis. She also coordinates the “Indonesian Endangered Boatbuilding Heritage” project and underwater archaeological research in the Gulf of Naples. She is the author of numerous studies and of the volume Archeologia e Etnografia Marittima. Metodi e tecniche (2017).

Paolo Milizia is Professor of Historical and General Linguistics in the Department of Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, where he teaches general and historical-comparative linguistics and has run a Coptic language workshop since 2021. He graduated in Classics, specialising in Classical Philology, from Sapienza University of Rome in 1998, obtained a PhD in Historical Linguistics and Philology from the University of Milan in 2003, and undertook a period of advanced study at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2024. He worked as a researcher at the University of Cassino and the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, before becoming an Associate Professor at ‘L’Orientale’, where he has been a full professor since 2024. His research focuses primarily on Indo-European linguistics, particularly Old and Middle Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, and on Coptic linguistics. In these fields, he has worked on etymology, phonology, morphology and writing systems. He has also studied theoretical linguistics (with particular emphasis on morphology), the history of linguistic thought and medieval Coptic-Arabic grammars. He is the author of the books Le lingue indoeuropee and L’equilibrio nella codifica morfologica (both published by Carocci), as well as numerous specialist studies.

Chiara Ghidini is Associate Professor of Religions and Philosophies of East Asia at the University of Naples L’Orientale. After graduating from the University of Naples L’Orientale under the supervision of Professor Silvio Vita, she was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to study under Professor Antonino Forte at ISEAS (Italian School of East Asian Studies) in Kyoto. She obtained a Master’s degree in Premodern Japanese Studies from Gakushuin University in Tokyo and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on cultural and religious history in East Asia, particularly Japan, on the construction of antiquity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan, and on the reception of ancient Greek history in Japan. Together with Professor Luca Arcari (University of Naples “Federico II”), she co-edits the “Forma Aperta” series published by L’Erma di Bretschneider. A full list of her publications is available on UNORA-Iris.