Study and career
David Kertai (1978) studied architecture at Delft University of Technology, ancient history at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and archaeology at Leiden University. He received his PhD from Heidelberg in 2012 for a study of Assyrian palace architecture and kingship (2015, The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces; Oxford University Press). He has worked as a researcher and lecturer at University College London, New York University, Tel Aviv University, Martin Buber Society of Fellows (Jerusalem) and the Freie Universität Berlin and has been active as a field archaeologist in Iraq, Syria and Turkey since 2005.
Research
David Kertai is particularly interested in the integration of historical, archaeological and art historical research to study the history of the ancient Near East in all its facets. In addition, David Kertai is interested in the genesis and development of ancient Near Eastern archaeology in the nineteenth century. From 2016, David Kertai has been involved in the British Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme in the Darband-i Rania region of Iraqi Kurdistan.