I am an Assyriologist based in Leiden (the Netherlands) and Privatdozent at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Germany).

I have studied original clay tablets in various museums for several decades, which has subsequently led to numerous publications of cuneiform tablets. My research area includes the legal documents of Nuzi (15th century BC) as well as literary and scientific (medical, divinatory and astronomical) texts of the second and first millennium BC. Over the past decade-plus, I have specialised in celestial omens and astronomical cuneiform texts to better understand the beginnings of astrology and astronomy.

In 2023, Mathieu Ossendrijver invited me to come to Berlin for a month to conduct research together with members of the ZODIAC team. During my ZODIAC fellowship (November/December 2023) I conducted research on the Akkadian term lumāšu and other topics of Late Babylonian astral science in collaboration with the ZODIAC team (publications forthcoming).

Curriculum Vitae:

Habilitation in Assyriology (2006), Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg.

PhD in Assyriology (1999), Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg.

Magister Artium in Keilschriftkunde, Hittitology and Egyptology (1989), Universität Hamburg.

For more information, see my personal website: http://www.fincke-cuneiform.com