Stefano Aprà received his BA in History from the University of Turin in 2020. During his BA, he spent a year as an exchange student at the Department of Ancient Oriental Studies (Altorientalistik) at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, and then started an MA in Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin. His MA thesis investigated regional trade routes in north-western Transjordan between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The research combined the use of Least-Cost Path Analysis and GIS methods with a historical-archaeological approach aimed at investigating the socio-political framework of the region and how individuals and trade goods moved across the landscape.
During his academic training, Stefano has explored different geographical and chronological contexts in the Ancient Near East, combining an approach based on the study of archaeological materials, geo-political history and archaeological theory with quantitative methods in the field of Digital Humanities. Specifically, as an undergraduate he developed a keen interest in Mesopotamia of the 2nd millennium BCE, focusing in particular on the South of the region between the Old Babylonian and the Kassite periods. As an MA student he studied the Levantine context in depth, including early forms of urbanization, state formation and stateless societies, trade route networks and human mobility.
Furthermore, Stefano was able to deepen his knowledge of topography, GIS science and 3D modelling by working as a surveyor and topographer for the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) on the archaeological project at the Early Islamic site of Qurh/Al-Mabiyat (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). He has also had the opportunity to participate in other archaeological projects in Italy (Tindari, Solunto), Lebanon (Qornet ed-Deir), and Jordan (Tell Ushayer).
At ISAW, Stefano intends to deepen his study of the Levantine context during the Bronze and Iron Ages, focusing on trans-regional cultural exchanges, material influences, mobility in antiquity, and more in general assessing the role of the Levant as a place of interface and interaction between different cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean basin. In parallel, he intends to further develop his knowledge in the field of Digital Humanities and computational sciences as an essential part of his approach to the study of History and Archaeology.