ISAW Alumnus Jonathan Valk Receives European Research Council Grant

We are delighted to share news from our alumnus Dr. Jonathan Valk, who recently won the European Research Council’s ERC Starting Grant for promising early-career scholars. 

Jonathan Valk’s ERC-funded research project will explore the emergence and expansion of Aramaic writing across the Middle East during the early first millennium BCE. It aims to build a detailed digital repository of early Aramaic texts, record indirect signs of its use, and reframe the spread of Aramaic as a gradual, enduring transformation. By tracing this linguistic shift, the project deepens our understanding of how languages evolve—offering valuable insights for both ancient history and today’s rapidly changing linguistic landscape. His project is based at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid and started during summer 2025.

Valk holds the position of distinguished researcher at the Spanish National Research Council’s (CSIC) Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East (ILC) and docent in Ancient Near Eastern studies at the University of Helsinki. 

His research explores the social history of the ancient Middle East, with a focus on how language use relates to power and identity. To learn more about his research, you can watch a talk he recently gave at the Assyrian Cultural Foundation in Chicago.