Recent Projects
Cultural Contacts between South Arabia and Ethiopia
This long-term research project, funded by the DFG, is carried out by the Oriental Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and by the Research Centre Ancient South Arabia and Northeast Africa. It focuses on the cultural contacts between Sabaeans, who had arrived from South Arabia in the early first millennium BC, and the local population in the region of Tigray. Of particular interest are the processes of interaction between South Arabian and indigenous populations in the first millennium BC. The geographical centre of the research is constituted by the site of Yeha, which, due to its monumental architecture and written sources, is identified as the political and religious centre of this region.
(Tigray/Ethiopia) |© DAI: Irmgard Wagner
© DAI: Mike Schnelle
The Minaic Online Dictionary
The project, which has been funded by the DFG since 2024, aims to create an online dictionary of Minaic. Minaic, which belongs to the ancient South Arabian languages, is documented in around 2,000 inscriptions spanning the entire first millennium BC. Although most of the material comes from the north of present-day Yemen, Minaic inscriptions have also been found in northwestern Arabia, Egypt, and the Aegean region. Due to the strong involvement of the Minaeans in international trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean region, the texts in the Minaic language are an important testimony not only to the history of the Arabian Peninsula, but also to the economic and social history of the ancient world as a whole.
Completed Projects
Ethiopian Heritage Digital Atlas (2022-2024)
The Ethiopian Heritage Digital Atlas (EHDA), financed by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, comprises the development of an English-language web-based monument information system that aims to enhance Ethiopia's cultural preservation ...
Archaeological and Epigraphic Investigations of the Sabaean capital Mārib (2007-2010)
The joint archaeological and epigraphic project, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation, aimed to answer questions about the organisation and spatial design of the city, the chronology ...
Editing of Ancient South Arabic minuscule inscriptions on wooden sticks from the Bavarian State Library in Munich (2002-2009)
The inscriptions carved in wooden sticks and palm-leaf stalks comprise documentary texts from southern Arabia in the pre-Islamic period (10th century BC to 6th century AD). In contrast to monumental inscriptions on stone blocks, rock and metal plaques, ...
The Sabaic Online Dictionary (2012-2025)
The project, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2012, aims to create a Sabaic Online Dictionary. With approximately 6,000 inscriptions and a duration of 1,400 years from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD ...
The Digitisation of the Ethio-Sabaic inscriptions (August 2010 - March 2011)
The Ethio-Sabaic inscriptions from the northern Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands are still the only written source of information about the kingdom of DʿMT...
Title image: The ancient city of Mārib | © Iris Gerlach