Marcella Frangipane

Marcella Frangipane (born 10 October 1948) is a professor of archaeology at the Sapienza University of Rome. She works on the prehistory and protohistory of the Near East and Middle East.^[1] She was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2013.^[2]

Frangipane was born in Palermo.^[2] She studied humanities with honours in archaeology at the Sapienza University of Rome, and graduated cum laude in 1972.^[2] Early in her career she spent three years in the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico, where she learned new techniques in anthropology.^[2][3] She has been involved with several excavations, in Europe, Mexico, Turkey and Egypt.^[3] She was involved the excavation of Cunalan village in the Teotihuacan valley.^[4] She has been involved with the excavation team of the Arslantepe since 1976.^[5]

Frangipane returned to the Sapienza University of Rome in 1981, where she eventually became a Professor in 1990.^[3] She led the School of Archaeology from 2000 to 2003, and was made Vice Director of the Late Predynastic site of Maadi.^[3][6] Frangipane studies the formation of bureaucratic and hierarchical structures in urban societies.^[5] She is mainly interested in the near and Middle East.^[5]

Frangipane was made Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Eastern Anatolia in 1990.^[7][8] She was involved with the excavation of Arslantepe, where she reconstructed their early administrative systems.^[2] This work was supported by the National Geographic.^[9] The settlement is west of the banks of the Euphrates and is well known for its architecture.^[10] Frangipane identified the most ancient secular public structure worldwide.^[10] Arslantepe was included in the UNESCO cultural heritage list in 2014 owing to the significance of Frangipane's findings.^[11] She investigated the site of Zeytinli Bahçe Höyük, a village in the Urfa district.^[12] Within Arslantepe, Frangipane led the team who discovered the word's oldest royal palace.^[13] She was also involved with excavations of

She was the first Italian woman to be elected a foreign associate to the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.^[14]

Her awards and honours include;

• 1994 Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana^[15]
• 2005 Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà^[16]
• 2005 Honorary Citizenship of Eski Malatya^[14]
• 2011 İnönü University Honorary Doctorate^[5]
• 2013 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences^[2]
• 2015 Shanghai Archaeology Forum Discovery Award^[17]
• 2015 Vittorio De Sica Prize for Science^[5]
• 2017 Rotondi Award for the Saviours of Art^[5]
• 2018 University of Sydney Anthony McNicoll Lecture^[18]
• 2021 Corresponding fellow of the British Academy^[19]

Frangipane s a member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Shanghai Archeology Forum.^[20]

• Frangipane, Marcella (2001). Uruk Mesopotamia & Its Neighbors: Cross-Cultural Interactions in the Era of State Formation (School Leadership Library). School of American Research Press. ISBN 978-1930618022.
• Frangipane, Marcela (2007). Arslantepe Cretulae: An Early Centralised Administrative System Before Writing. L'Erma Di Bretschneider. ISBN 978-8890170171.
• Frangipane, Marcella (2017). The Origin of Inequality. Gangemi Editore. ISBN 978-8849247961.