Michele Piccirillo

Michele Piccirillo (1944–2008) was a Franciscan priest and expert in Byzantine archaeology. He is credited with advancing the study of early Byzantine archaeology, and especially the study of mosaics, in Jordan, Palestine and Syria.

Career Starting in 1975, Piccirillo taught biblical history and biblical geography in Jerusalem, where he had become part of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. who led Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad to the site and set in motion the excavation, preservation and development of Al-Maghtas.

Death Michele Piccirillo died of pancreatic cancer on 26 October 2008 in Livorno, Italy, and was laid to rest at Mt Nebo.

Published work Piccirillo has published dozens of scholarly articles as well as several books, among them

The Mosaics of Jordan (1993), Amman: ACOR, dealing with the entire corpus of Jordan's ancient mosaics Umm al-Rasas Mayfa'ah: Gli scavi del complesso di Santo Stefano (1994) ['Umm al-Rasas Mayfa'ah: The excavation of the St Stephen Complex'], as main author and co-editor with Eugenio Alliata, Jerusalem: SBF, Collectio Maior 28 Mount Nebo: New Archaeological Excavations 1967-1997 (1998), SBF, Collectio Maior 27 The Madaba Map Centenary 1897-1997 (1999), SBF