Jorrit Kelder

Jorrit Kelder (Hoorn, 1980) is a Dutch archaeologist and ancient historian. He is known especially for his work on Mycenaean political structures, and in particular his argument (first proposed in 2005 and elaborated on in a 2010 monograph) that the Mycenaean world was a single, unified state (rather than a patchwork of culturally similar, yet politically independent palace states, as had hitherto been proposed).^[1]

Kelder has worked as a policy officer or adviser for various academic institutions, including the Netherlands Organisation to Scientific Research, the university of Amsterdam, the university of Oxford and Leiden University.^[2] He has held, and continues to hold, various (honorary) affiliated positions.^[3] and is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the “From Aleph to Alpha” project, headed by Willemijn Waal.^[4] He was a visiting professor in Greek Archaeology at Ghent University in the 2019-2020 academic year,^[5] a guest researcher at Leiden University,^[6] and an associate member of the sub-faculty of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford and a member of the common room of Wolfson College, Oxford.^[7]

Kelder is a member of the Board of Luwian Studies.^[8] Previously, he served as a member of the supervisory board of the Teylers Museum,^[9] and as a member of the advisory committee of the Dutch Art and Heritage council, the Mondriaan Fonds.^[10] He has been the recipient of various prestigious fellowships, including a fellowship from the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation and a Guest Scholarship at the J. Paul Getty Museum.^[11]

Apart from his work on Mycenaean political structures, Kelder has published extensively on the Mycenaean world and its connections to contemporary civilisations, including Egypt and the Hittite Empire.^[12][13]