Contact

Telephone: +43 1 4277 43204
E-Mail: michael.zach@univie.ac.at

 Profile

In the field of “African History and Societies”, Michael Zach represents the regional focus on North- and Northeast Africa. Within this segment, his research interest focuses on Austrian travellers to Northeast Africa during the 19^th century as well as Meroitic studies, a scientific discipline which emerged in the late 1960s, dealing with the cultural expressions of the best documented antique African society outside of Egypt on the basis of archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources. Special research is dedicated to Meroitic art, iconography and chronology as well as the localisation of Meroitic objects, which after their discovery were distributed without adequate documentation to museums and collections worldwide respectively within to Sudan to newly erected provincial museums in recent times.

Studying History in combination with African Studies he graduated with a diploma thesis on the Austrians in the Sudan between 1820 and 1914 as well as a doctoral dissertation on Martin Hansal, an Austrian traveller to Sudan. In the following years he collaborated in two third-party funded research projects on certain aspects of Meroitic society. His habilitation dealt with Meroitic social history.

Holding positions in national and international scientific societies, he is also editor of the international periodical “Beiträge zur Sudanforschung” and the accompanying monograph series of the “Beihefte”. Since 2011 he is vice-dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at Vienna University responsible for teaching.