Katrien De Graef

Prof. Dr. Katrien De Graef is a Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University, specializing in the languages and socio-economic history of 2nd millennium BCE Babylonia and Elam. Her research bridges traditional philology with digital humanities methodologies, creating innovative approaches to ancient Near Eastern studies.

Her research focuses on:

• Prosopography of Babylonian and Elamite societies
• Sealing practices as social and economic indicators
• Network analysis of ancient Near Eastern communities
• Digital methodologies for cuneiform texts (OCR, NLP)
• Gender studies in Old Babylonian society

De Graef's research demonstrates strong interdisciplinary connections between traditional philology and computational methods. Her recent publications show a clear trajectory toward integrating digital humanities approaches with traditional Assyriological research, particularly in developing OCR for cuneiform cursive script and NLP pipelines for annotating cuneiform texts. This work enhances the integration and interpretation of textual, prosopographical, and material data from the ancient Near East.

Her notable scientific contributions include:

• Research on sealing practices of women in Old Babylonian Sippar
• Analysis of nadītu women's social identity
• Studies on the Sukkalmah dynasty in Elam
• Examination of dual power structures in ancient Susa
• Investigation of matronymics in Sukkalmah Susa

As a supervisor, Prof. De Graef has guided several doctoral students to completion, including Hendrik Hameeuw (2020), Astrid Verhulst (2015), and Guido Suurmeijer (2014). She leads multiple research projects including "CUNE-IIIF-ORM" (2021-2026) which aims to create an internationally image interoperable corpus of cuneiform tablets, and "War, trade and diplomacy" examining international relations between Babylonia and Elam.

Her laboratory and research team work at the intersection of Assyriology and digital humanities, collaborating with computer scientists and archaeologists to develop new methodologies for studying ancient texts and material culture.