Mirko Surdi is an FWO - Fundamental Research PhD fellow (primary institution: University of Ghent; partner institution: Polytechnic University of Milan). Mirko obtained a BA in Ancient Civilizations and Archaeology from the University of Naples "L'Orientale" (partner institution: IPE, CCUM). After moving to Venice, he completed his MA in Ancient Civilizations: Literature, History, and Archaeology at Ca' Foscari University. In this period, Mirko also had the opportunity to work with the Polytechnic University of Milan and to participate in archaeological missions both in Italy and abroad (Egypt, Israel, Iraq).
After graduating, Mirko was appointed as an honorary fellow in History of Ancient Near East at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He has been working on the EbDA project (Ebla Digital Archives) since then.
His main focus is on the social and economic history of Mesopotamia and Elam in the second half of the third millennium. He is primarily interested in applying methodologies from the field of Digital Humanities to Assyriological studies.
At Ghent University, he is working on the project “From the 21st Century BC to the 21st Century AD. New Methodological Approaches for the Analysis of a Corpus of Unpublished Cuneiform Tablets”. The main goal of the project is to provide a comprehensive and complete study of a corpus of 200 unpublished tablets from the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC), along with the application of several digital methodologies such as Social Network Analysis (SNA), Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), 3D scanning, and Computer Tomography.