Professional profile
Archaeologist | Phoenician and Punic Culture | Archaeology of Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant
Researcher Director at CNR, where he has been working since 2001 at the Institute of Heritage Sciences (ISPC). He serves as a consultant for several universities in Italy and Spain in the evaluation of international research projects. He is a specialist in Phoenician and Punic civilization, with particular reference to material culture, economy, trade networks, and strategies of territorial interaction and exploitation in both pre-colonial and colonial contexts, with special attention to relations with indigenous communities.
His main geographical areas of research include Sardinia, the Iberian Peninsula, and Tunisia, where he has carried out archaeological excavations, surveys, and large-scale studies on the dynamics of territorial settlement and control initiated by the Phoenicians. He has also repeatedly investigated contacts between the Phoenician world and the populations of Tyrrhenian peninsular Italy during the so-called Orientalizing Period (late 8th-early 6th century BC).
In Sardinia, he has participated in excavations at the tofet, settlement, and necropolis of Monte Sirai, while simultaneously conducting systematic territorial surveys and landscape studies. Also in Sardinia, he has carried out excavations and surveys at Nora and Pani Loriga; at the latter site, he has been the ISPC officer in charge of the annual excavation and survey missions, conducted regularly since October 2005.
In Tunisia, since 2006 he has been involved in the Althiburos Mission, directed by Sergio Ribichini, initially as director of territorial surveys and, since 2009, as field director and archaeologist of the local sanctuary-tofet excavations.
In 2013, together with A. Roppa and P. Van Dommelen, he organized the International Conference Sardinia and the Problem of the Fifth Century in Santadi (Sardinia). In the same location, he organized two further International Conferences: in 2022, with G. Pietra, South-Western Sardinia between Prehistory and the Phoenician-Punic Period. The Case of Pani Loriga at Santadi; and in 2025, with G. Scardozzi, M. Bettelli, and L. Tirabassi, Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Historical Landscapes.
Within the framework of the PRIN 2017 project People of the Middle Sea. Innovation and Integration in the Ancient Mediterranean (1600–500 BC), together with T. Pedrazzi, M.B. organized an online workshop entitled Levantine and Phoenician Commercial Amphorae between East and West: Patterns of Innovation (16th-7th Centuries)”, held on 12-13 May 2022. The proceedings of the workshop were published in 2025.
He is Director of the Collezione di Studi Fenici and a member of the Scientific Committee of the journals SPAL (Seville), Menga. Revista de Prehistoria de Andalucía (Junta de Andalucía), and, from 1 December 2017 to 24 February 2025, of the monographic series Mytra, a specialized publication of the Instituto de Arqueología-Mérida (CSIC-Junta de Extremadura).
As a foreign member, he is part of the Centro de Estudios Fenicios y Púnicos (CEFYP) based in Madrid. As an adjunct professor of Phoenician-Punic Archaeology, he has taught at the University of Urbino, at the University of Naples “Federico II”, and at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”.
He currently teaches at the Interuniversity School of Specialization between the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and the University of Salerno (Or.Sa.). The results of his scholarly activity are documented in over 100 publications in Italian, English, French, and Spanish.
CNR Disciplinary Fields and Research Management Sectors
- SH6_3 Archaeology of early literate societies and early civilizations
- SH8_3 Cultural studies and theory, cultural identities and memories, cultural heritage
- SH6_1 Archaeological methods and theory, history of archaeology
MUR Italian Scientific-Disciplinary Sector
- 10/N1 Cultures of the Ancient Near East, the Middle East, and Africa
- STAA-01/E Archaeology and Art History of Ancient Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean
- STAA-01/F Phoenician-Punic Archaeology
Groups & Labs CNR ISPC
Phoenician and Punic Research Group →
Publications
Highlight
M. Botto (2025). Among Sardinians and Phoenicians: on the Earliest Transport Amphorae of Sardinian Production. In: Botto M., Pedrazzi T. (eds), Levantine and Phoenician Commercial Amphorae between East and West: Patterns of Innovation (16th-7th Centuries BCE), p. 171-236, Roma: CNR edizioni, ISBN: 978-88-8080-748-3, (https://doi: 10.19282/TCM.02.2025).
M. Botto, Carthaginian Policy in the West-Central Mediterranean between the Late VII and VI Centuries BCE, in RSF, 52 (2024) [2025], p. 131-152, Roma: Edizioni Quasar, ISBN: 978-88-5491-619-7 (https://doi: 10.19282/rsf.52.2024).
M. Botto, Phoenician Trade in the Lower Tyrrhenian Sea between the 9th and 8th Centuries BC: the Case of Cumae, in T.E. Cinquantaquattro, M. D’Acunto, F. Iannone (eds.), Euboica II. Pithekoussai and Euboea between East and West, vol. II (AION, Annali di Archeologia e Storia Antica, Università degli Studi di Napoli «L’Orientale», n.s. 28), Napoli 2021 [2024], p. 461-500, Napoli: UniorPress, ISSN 1127-7130.
