About
Professor Peter Pormann is a Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester's Classics, Ancient History & Egyptology department. His research focuses on the transmission of Greek medical and scientific knowledge into the Islamic world, with a particular emphasis on Syriac and Arabic translations. He leads interdisciplinary projects combining digital humanities with textual recovery, most notably the Syriac Galen Palimpsest project using multispectral imaging. Pormann holds a D.Phil from the University of Oxford and has taught at multiple institutions globally.
Education: Studied Classics, French, and Islamic Studies at Sorbonne (Paris), Hamburg, and Tübingen. Earned MA in Islamic Studies at Leiden University, and M.Phil/D.Phil in Classics at Oxford.
Research Interests: Investigates Graeco-Arabic intellectual exchanges, medieval medical practices, palimpsest analysis, and digital preservation of ancient texts. Key topics include Galenic commentaries, Arabic medical literature, and hospital systems in early Islamic Baghdad.
Projects: Co-PI on the British Academy-funded Syriac Galen Palimpsest project (2015–2020), and the AHRC-funded Arabic Commentaries on Hippocratic Aphorisms (2012–2017). Developed GalenQt, a multispectral imaging tool for ancient manuscripts.
Media Impact: Featured in BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time,' The New York Times, and international media for discoveries in ancient medical texts. Publicly engages with topics like mental health history and intercultural knowledge transfer.
Labs/Teams: Collaborates with the John Rylands Research Institute and the University of Manchester's Digital Futures initiative. Works with international teams on multispectral imaging and textual restoration projects.
