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Lorenzo Nigro (Rome, 1967), PhD, is Full Professor of Near Eastern and Phoenician-Punic Archaeology in the Faculty of Letters, Dept. of Oriental Studies at Sapienza University of Rome.

He is an archaeologist with more than 25 years of field experience in the Levant (starting in Ebla, Syria, 1989-1997), and the Mediterranean. Since 2002 he is the Director of the Sapienza University Expedition to Motya, a Phoenician colony in Western Sicily, and, since 2004, of the Expedition to Palestine & Jordan, carrying on research projects at the sites of Tell es-Sultan/ancient Jericho, Tell Abu Zarad, and Bethlehem in Palestine, and Khirbet al-Batrawy (3 rd mill. BC fortified site), Jamaan and Rujum al-Jamus (Iron Age II fortresses) in Jordan.

He coordinated and participated in several research projects in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Sicily and Sardinia. He coordinated a PRIN 2009 (Research Projects of National Interest, Italy) and he is currently the P.I. of the PRIN 2017 Project Peoples of the Middle Sea . Innovation and Integration in ancient Mediterranean (1600-500 BC), and several cultural heritage programs for protection and study of archaeological sites, e.g. those in the Jericho Oasis, publishing a full catalogue of them (ROSAPAT 07/PADIS) and creating the Jericho Oasis Archaeological Park (JOAP) or that of Motya which is currently under realization by the Sicilian Region.

He has written more than 250 articles on refereed journals and edited more than 25 monographs giving prompt account of the excavations and research projects he directed. His studies address pre-classical societies in Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt and the Mediterranean ranging from architecture to metallurgy, from pottery to art (Akkadian and Neo-Assyrian), with a major focus on contextual archaeology, public/community archaeology, as well as on historical and cultural synchronization and conceptualization of Levantine and Mediterranean civilizations. He is among the highest ranked scholars in Levantine and Mediterranean.

Discoveries by Sapienza team he directed in Motya have drastically changed our knowledge of the archaeology of the Sicilian island, expanding the temporal range of its prominent role in central Mediterranean from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BC and bringing to light numerous monument unknown including the earliest Phoenician settlement, the Temple of the Kothon, two small temples of Astarte and several other archaeological features, which deeply renovated the interpretation of the site.

His work in Jericho has re-appraised the stratigraphy, chronology and interpretation of the site with major contribution in chronological assessment of the site (Radiocarbon). Moreover, in 2004, with his team he discovered a previously unknown 3rd millennium BC site in Jordan (Khirbet al-Batrawy) with monumental fortifications, a temple and a palace found full of furnishings, which shed new light of the phenomenon of urbanism in peripheral areas of the Levant.

He has been the Curator of the Near Eastern Dept. of the Vatican Museums (1998-2005), gaining deep experience in restoration, management, exhibit and development of archaeological heritage. Currently he is the Director of the Museum of Near East, Egypt and Mediterranean of Sapienza University of Rome