German Archaeological Institute

Research Assistant, Orient Department

Other Affiliations: Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Prähistorische Archäologie
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie und Provinzialrömische Archäologie

PhD student

Thesis Title: 'Geliehene Waffen'. Über die Rolle der Miniaturschwerter zur Konstituierung gesellschaftlichen Status in der Spätbronzezeit Nordeuropas. ('Borrowed arms.' About miniature swords as means of consolidation of social rank within the Late Nordic Bronze Age.)

About

I studied Prehistoric Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin under Prof. Hänsel and Prof. Teržan, where I fnished studies in 2009 achieving the degree of Magister Artium.
Main focus of my research interest is the European Bronze Age, especially burial customs and material culture in view of the representation of prestige and social hierarchy. This is closely related to my interest in places of cult and ritual respectively the question of their archaeological evidence.

At the moment I am graduating at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich; my dissertation deals with the phenomenon of miniature swords in the Nordic Bronze Age and the role of these symbolic arms as markers of social rank. From Montelius’ Period IV onwards, miniature swords are found in burials while their larger pendants are mostly (but not exclusively) connected to depositions. Other than stated before, miniature swords are not displacing the large arms as grave goods completely – when they are disappearing from burials in Period V this also means the end of the Bronze Age miniature sword phenomenon in the North.

My second field of activity – the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and the beginning sedentism as well as the development of early complex societies in that period – has to do with my affiliation with a research project of the German Archaeological Institute regarding the Göbekli Tepe near Şanlıurfa in south-eastern Anatolia, where we are excavating and researching the first monumental architecture of man, which apparently was a very early cultic centre or gathering place of hunter-gatherer groups.

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