Professional profile
Epigraphist | Semitic philologist | Digital Humanist | Digital Heritage specialist
A Semitic philologist specializing in the epigraphy of pre-Islamic Arabia, she received her academic education at the University of Pisa, followed by postdoctoral research positions at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and at the Laboratoire d’Excellence ResMed (Panthéon-Sorbonne Université; CNRS – Orient & Méditerranée, Paris). She has been a permanent researcher at the CNR since 2016 and a senior researcher since 2023.
Her research focuses on South Arabian civilization, addressing linguistic, historical, and religious aspects, with particular attention to the documentation of the Minaean kingdom. Alongside philological and historical research, she engages in digital epigraphy and in the analysis of methodological and theoretical issues related to the computational approach to the study of ancient sources. Her studies have been published in several articles and monographs.
She serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy (Wiley) and of the monographic series Arabian Heritage (Brill), overseeing the epigraphic sections, and she sits in the Steering Committee of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (SAS). She is a member of the scientific committee of the project on ancient polytheisms MAGO. Making Gods and part of the Advisory Board of the AICAP – AlUla Inscriptions Corpus Analysis Project (Ghent University, RCU). Within the framework of the Dadan Archaeological Project (CNRS, AFALULA, RCU), she is responsible for the study of the South Arabian inscriptions discovered at the site of Dadan (AlUla, Saudi Arabia).
Since 2017 she has been the scientific coordinator of the open-access corpus DASI – Digital Archive for the Study of Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions, supervising scholarly content and technological development. She directs the Gazetteer of Ancient Arabia and serves on the editorial board of the Thematic Dictionary of Ancient Arabia within the Ancient Arabia portal, an outcome of the ANR-funded MAPARABIA project (CNRS–CNR), in which she acted as Italian Research Unit leader.
She is the CNR Research Unit leader of the Italian MUR-funded PRIN 2022 project In.Res.Agri, for which she designed a database integrating resources related to topographical research, including epigraphic and toponomastic data. As Research Unit leader within the PNRR project Humanities and Cultural Heritage Italian Open Science Cloud (H2IOSC), she coordinates a pilot project on digital epigraphy (Open Digital Epigraphy Hub) as well as activities aimed at the interoperability and FAIRification of Heritage Science data within the E-RIHS ERIC infrastructure. She also coordinates the Digital Humanities activities of the ArCOA project, on the collections of Ancient Near Eastern objects in Italian museums.
She sits on the scientific board of the diamond open-access journal Archeologia e Calcolatori (A&C), where she previously served on the editorial board. Her commitment to Open Science ithin the Open Data research group of CNR-ISPC has included contributing to the open-access policy for the institute’s research outputs and to the launch of the CNR ISPC Open Portal.
She has held teaching appointments in South Arabian epigraphy at the University of Pisa and at the UCL–Qatar and has co-supervised a doctoral dissertation at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
CNR Disciplinary Fields and Research Management Sectors
- SH6_8 Ancient history, medieval history
- SH5_11 Digital humanities, computational and digital approaches in the cultural sphere
- SH5_4 Philology, text and image studies
MUR Italian Scientific-Disciplinary Sector
- STAA-01/G Semitic Studies – Languages and Literatures of Ethiopia
Groups & Labs CNR ISPC
Open Science Research Group →
Ancient Near East Research Group →
Publications
Highlight
M. Arbach, I. Rossi (2024), An Onomastic Index of the Minaic Inscriptions (6th–1st Centuries BCE), Arabia Antica 18, Roma: L’«Erma» di Bretschneider. e-ISBN: 978-88-913-3146-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48255/9788891331465
I. Rossi (2022). The City-States of the Jawf at the Dawn of Ancient South Arabian History (8th-6th Centuries BCE). II. Corpus of the Inscriptions. Arabia Antica 17. Roma: L’«Erma» di Bretschneider. e-ISBN: 978-88-913-2296-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48255/9788891322968
A. De Santis, I. Rossi (eds) (2018), Crossing Experiences in Digital Epigraphy: From Practice to Discipline, Warsaw/Berlin: De Gruyter Open Poland. e-ISBN: 978-3-11-060720-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607208
