Dr Marco Santini (BA, MA SNS Pisa; PhD Princeton)
Lecturer in Ancient History

Contact details
- Email: msantini@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
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10.11, 40 George Square
- City
- Post code
Availability
Friday 10:00-12:00
Background
I was trained at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, where I earned a BA (July 2014) and an MA in Classics (July 2016). Then, I joined the Department of Classics of Princeton University, where I received my PhD (December 2021) and was employed as a Postgraduate Research Associate and Lecturer (January-July 2022). From October 2022 to December 2024, I was Fellow by Examination in Ancient History at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. I came to my current post in Edinburgh in January 2025.
During my doctoral training, I participated in the Exchange Scholar Program with the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania (Academic Years 2016/17, 2017/18), joined the Inter-University Consortium program with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (NYU, Fall 2018), and held a Hyde Fellowship for carrying out my doctoral research at the Historisches Seminar of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich (2019-2020). More recently, I held a CECIL Visiting Fellowship at the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics of the University of Pisa (September 2024). In Spring 2026, I will be the Evans-Pritchard Lecturer at All Souls College, University of Oxford.
CV

Qualifications
BA Classics (University of Pisa, July 2014)
MA Classical Philology and Ancient History (University of Pisa, July 2016)
Diploma di Licenza (BA & MA) Classical Philology, Linguistics and History (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, December 2017)
MA Classics (Princeton University, September 2018)
PhD Ancient History (Princeton University, December 2021)
Undergraduate teaching
Semester 2, 2024/25
- The Greek World 1B (Course Organiser)
- Ancient History 2B
- Greek History Seminar 2 ("Greece and the Near East: Contacts, Conflicts, Exchanges").
See my CV here for more information on courses I taught in the past.
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
I welcome enquiries from any students interested in early/archaic Greek society, politics, and culture; in the Iron Age Mediterranean; and in Greece's interactions with Anatolia, the Levant, and the Near East broadly intended. More specific enquiries on the history and societies of 1st-millennium Anatolia (Neo-Hittite states, Phrygia, Lydia, Lycia, Caria) also particularly welcome, as well as on any of the topics listed in my research profile.
Research summary
My main research interests lie in the political, social, and cultural history of the Eastern Mediterranean between the second and first millennia BC, with a special focus on the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Levant and their relations with the wider Near East during the Iron Age (ca. 1200-600 BC). Major themes I address in my research include political thought and practice, ethnic identity, cultural memory, and multiculturalism. I also have a strong interest in the languages and scripts of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East (especially Anatolian such as Luwian, Hittite, and Carian, and Semitic such as Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, and Aramaic), as well as in the political, social, and cultural implications of multilingualism in the ancient Mediterranean world.
I am currently working on my first book project, titled "A Common Path in a Diverse World: Political Development in the Iron Age Eastern Mediterranean, ca. 1200-600 BC". The book studies the emergence of new forms of rulership in the Eastern Mediterranean after the crisis of the Late Bronze Age palatial societies and analyses the profiles of the protagonists of Iron Age political development, arguing for the existence of shared structural patterns in political thought and practice across Greece, Anatolia, and the Levant. I am also preparing a short volume on "Political Geographies of the Iron Age Mediterranean" for the new series "Cambridge Elements: The Mediterranean Iron Age", edited by C. López-Ruiz and T. Hodos.
I have recently published articles on the Anatolian roots of the concept of tyranny; on the dynastic change from Herakleids to Mermnads in early Lydia; on the political organisation of Iron Age Phrygia; and on the interplay between language and political power in the Iron Age Near East. In the past, I devoted a substantial part of my research to the cultural history of Hellenistic Caria, with a focus on the city of Halikarnassos and the epigraphic poem known as "The Pride of Halikarnassos", publishing four articles on the topic.
I collaborated on several research initiatives: as contributor to a project for a new online database of "Greek Economic Inscriptions" (GEI) based at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (2015-2017); as PhD member in the international project "Material Entanglements in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond" funded by the Getty Foundation (2018-2020); as member of the leading team and expert coordinator for Southwestern Asia in the international project "A World History of Ritual", hosted by the School of Anthropology and Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford (2022-2024); and as academic member in the "Ancient Anatolia Network", sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford (2023-2024).
For further details, please see my CV here and the “Publications” tab below.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals
- “The Tyrants’ Cousins. Ruling Practices and Political Concepts between Anatolia and Early Greece”, Klio: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 106/1, 2024, pp. 1-57.
- “Giochi di nomi. Tre note su Alicarnasso e l’iscrizione di Salmacide”, Ricerche Ellenistiche 4, 2023, pp. 95-124.
- “Languages, Peoples, and Power: Some Near Eastern Perspectives”, Chatreššar 4/1, 2021, pp. 5-39.
- “Bellerophontes, Pegasos and the Foundation of Halikarnassos. Contributions to the Study of the Salmakis Inscription”, Studi Classici e Orientali 63, 2017, pp. 109-143.
- “A Multi-Ethnic City Shapes Its Past. The ‘Pride of Halikarnassos’ and the Memory of Salmakis”, Annali della Scuola Normale di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 8/1, 2016, pp. 3-35.
Articles in Edited Volumes
- “Iron Age Anatolian Politics and the Lydian Tradition”, in E. Pulvirenti (ed.), Anatolian Interactions: Criss-Cross Contacts and Cultural Dynamics in the First Millennium BCE (Quaderni 18). Università degli Studi di Trento: Trento 2024, pp. 149-201.
- “A Rhetoric of Accumulation: The Multi-Ethnic Identity of Halikarnassos in Antiquarian and Public Discourse”, in A. Payne, Š. Velhartická, and J. Wintjes (eds.), Beyond All Boundaries: Anatolia in the First Millennium BC (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 295). Peeters: Leuven, Paris, Bristol (CT) 2021, pp. 604-635.
Online
- “Ionians and Carians in an Aramaic Letter from Saqqâra: Notes for a Tentative Interpretation of NSaqPap 26”, BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum 4/1, 2019 [2021].
- Greek Economic Inscriptions (GEI) 037: Telmessos. Honorary Decree for Ptolemy son of Lysimachos (2017).
- Greek Economic Inscriptions (GEI) 030: Olymos. Decree on Purchase of Land (2017).
Book Reviews
- Alex R. Knodell, Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History (Oakland 2021), Mediterranean Historical Review 38/1, 2023, pp. 147-152.
- Kathryn Stevens, Between Greece and Babylonia. Hellenistic Intellectual History in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Cambridge 2019), Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 111/2, 2021, pp. 286-296.