Work-It

22/08/2026

📚Anwar Arifin and Daniele Soares, our researchers, attended the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) annual conference this summer.

🔗 Discover their presentation highlights below!

European Research Council

Anwar Arifin and Daniele Soares, our researchers, participated in the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) annual conference in Leuven from June 20 to 23. We asked about their presentations, and here’s what they shared!

11/08/2026

Our researcher Lucia Cerullo had the opportunity to attend an international conference titled KIŠIB: Why Sealing? From Sealed Clay to Social Interaction in Ancient West Asia as an auditor. Read about her experience from our blog from the link below!

European Research Council

Our researcher, Lucia Cerullo, had the opportunity to attend an international conference focusing on sealing practices. Here are some of her reflections on the experience:

04/08/2026

✈️ Our researchers have been busy attending conferences around the world this summer, just as they did last year! While we wait for their latest reflections, revisit their thoughts from last summer's conferences.

🔗 Link below!

European Research Council

The summer of 2025 turned out to be an active and productive season for our research group. Members of the team participated in several conferences and meetings across Europe, presenting our project, refining methodologies, and strengthening connections within the wider scholarly community.

24/07/2026

Our student assistants got to reflect on their first 6 months as part of the team at WORK-IT. Read about their experience on our blog from the link below!

European Research Council

Our student assistants got to reflect on their first 6 months as part of the team at WORK-IT. Here's what they had to say.

17/07/2026

Two of our research assistants, Mirjami Oittila and Jarno Posti have now been part of the WORK-IT team for 6 months. They're putting together a blog post reflecting on what they've learned, what's surprised them, and what a day in the life as a student assistant actually looks like.
We want to hear from you: what would you like to know about their experience?
Drop your questions in the comments!

European Research Council

09/07/2026

One of our researchers, Filippo Pedron, was invited to give a talk at Stockholm University in May at a workshop titled "Philology Meets AI: Deciphering Rare Scripts", organized by the DESCRYPT project. Read his reflections on the experience on our blog from the link below!

European Research Council

Filippo Pedron had the pleasure of being invited to give a talk at the workshop Philology Meets AI: Deciphering Rare Scripts, organized at Stockholm University in early May by the DESCRYPT Project. The workshop gathered experts in decryption and in the Elamite scripts and other rare scripts of the w...

07/07/2026

📚 While we prepare to introduce our researchers and highlight their upcoming work with Brill, why not revisit our earlier blog posts?

🧐 Discover the research they have been undertaking as part of the project in our WORK-ING THOUGHTS series by following the link below!


European Research Council

Welcome to our blog! Here, our researchers and staff share insights into their work, featuring stories, interviews, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into our projects. Stay tuned for discoveries, discussions, and the latest updates from our team!

02/07/2026

Exciting news! The project has signed a contract with Brill on 7 books that will be published as Open Access. The books are as follows:

Anwar Arifin. Weavers of the Distant Past: The Political Theology of Economic Historiography in Ancient Near East Studies.
Filippo Pedron. Taxation and Labor Organisation in the Achaemenid Heartland
Lucia Cerullo. Elamite Metalworks: Metal Vessels from the Collections of Arǧān, Ǧubāǧi and Kalmākarreh in the Iran National Museum.
Daniele Soares da Silva. Rebuilding Jerusalem: Labor and Taxation in Ezra-Nehemiah
Jeremy Land. Informal Taxation from the Ancient to the Early Modern.
Cerullo, Dogaer, and Shahryari. Reworking Labor and Fiscal Systems in the Achaemenid Empire: Dependency, Informality, and (Re)Conceptualization.
Land and Silverman. Towards a rapprochement between the Achaemenid Empire and Economic Historiography.

We congratulate our researchers on this exciting opportunity and look forward to hearing more about these fascinating topics in the future!

European Research Council

30/06/2026

We are sharing this in solidarity with our colleagues at the University of Exeter and to help amplify their call for support.

Last week, they received the deeply distressing news that 500 academic staff members at their University, including all colleagues in Theology and Religion, are at risk of compulsory redundancy, to be made in September.

The scale of these proposed cuts is significant: of the 153 academic posts the University proposes to cut, 114 are from the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

For those who would like to support our colleagues, here are some ways you can help:

1. Please sign this open letter to their University Leadership: https://lnkd.in/d2RyNH27

2. Sign a petition set up by the University of Exeter branch of the Universities and Colleges Union advocating more widely for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, which can be found at https://c.org/wFzQZCMfdw

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

25/06/2026

While summer often brings a slower pace, the importance of reflexivity in historical research remains a timeless topic of discussion. This week, we are revisiting our team’s reflections on how our own categories and assumptions shape the study of the Ancient Near East.

Read the blog post below!

European Research Council

We asked our researchers questions about reflexivity in the study of antiquity and about how our own categories, assumptions, and positions shape the ways we think about the Ancient Near East. This blog post is based on their answers.