Giorgio Buccellati is Research Professor in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and in the Department of History at UCLA. He founded the Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, of which he served as first director from 1973 until 1983 and is now Director of the Mesopotamian Lab. He is currently Director of IIMAS – the International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies and of AVASA – Associazione per la Valorizzazione dell'Archeologia e della Storia Antica.