Mme Cécile Michel

Affectation(s)

ARSCAN : Archéologie et sciences de l'antiquité (UMR 7041)

Domaines d'expertise

Assyriologie

À propos de moi

Senior Researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (Nanterre, CNRS, France) and Professor at Hamburg University (Germany), Cécile Michel is an Assyriologist specialist of the history of Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia during the second millennium BCE. Member of the international group of scholars in charge of the decipherment of the 23,000 tablets found at Kültepe Kaneš (Central Anatolia), She is working on private archives, the materiality of tablets, palaeography, literacy and education; She is a member of the Kültepe archaeological team.She has also published books and articles on international trade and economy, Mesopotamian society, family, gender and women, material culture including food, animals, stones, jewels, and textiles, chronology, history of techniques and sciences, especially history of mathematics. She has coordinated an Internatinal Resarch Network on ancient textiles (2015-2018).

Between 2014 and 2018 Cécile Michel acted as President of the International Association for Assyriology. After having headed the CNRS Scientific committee for Humanities and Social Sciences (2015-2018), She is currently scientific delegate at the CNRS Scientific Integrity Mission in charge of Humanities and Social Sciences cases, and heading ethics committees at the Hamburg Excellence Cluster Understanding Written Artefacts and the International Association for Archaeological Research in Western & Central Asia (ARWA).

In 2016 Cécile Michel was named as honorary Professor at Universität Hamburg, and in 2017 doctor honoris causa of Copenhagen University. In 2020-2021 her documentary film Thus speaks Taram-Kubi. Assyrian Correspondence, co-directed with Vanessa Tubiana-Brun (CNRS – MSH Monde, 47’) was awarded seven prizes and four mentions from archaeology film festivals in USA, Italy, Swizzerland, Greece, Croatia and France. They are also together author of the documentary film Cuneiform script: writing and calculating (available in five languages, 17’).

In 2019 Cécile Michel was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and in September 2023, she was awarded a doctor honoris causa from Hamburg University.