From the scant, tantalising literature available, already as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota I was keen on the archaeology of Arabia. But for different reasons I would have to wait for many years for this wish to become reality. During a stint at the German Institute of Archaeology in Bonn, I came to meet Gerd Weisgerber, a charismatic and resourceful mining archaeologist of the German Mining Museum, Bochum. A long and fruitful friendship ensued, beginning with a five-year period as a volunteer for the Museum. Weisgerber needed a metals specialist like me for the study of a hoard of nearly 600 metal finds from a hoard deposited around 800 BC, stashed in a tomb of the 3^rd millennium BC, at a place called ʿIbrī/Selme. A catalogue study of a metal hoard grew into a five-year excavation project centred on the site of Samad al-Shan in central Oman – the subject of my habilitation which was granted at Heidelberg University. Whereas the vast majority of archaeologist colleagues in south-eastern Arabia tend temporally to the remote Bronze Age cultures of the 3^rd and 2^nd millennia BC, the Late Iron Age period, till the arrival of Islam in 632 AD, fascinated me. Our published excavation report from Samad al-Shan, showed that even after the excavation and analysis of nearly 400 graves, how little one understood about the prehistory of what has become Oman. The period least written about in south-eastern Arabia is by no means its least interesting one.

From 1998 to 2010 I shifted my research focus to the ancient fortified Ḥimyarite capital of Ẓafār, in the Yemeni nujud (highlands) which enabled a perspective on late pre-Islam from the other, better-known side of southern Arabia. This large, badly battered site illuminated the centuries just before the advent of Islam in a very different way than did Samad: The ancient population was far denser and written sources were considerably more articulate than those for Oman. Ẓafār became my once-or-more-a-year second home, until the war there destabilised the entire region. Time and collegial contacts enabled me to nurture a deep interest in the interaction between archaeology and Arabic language, its roots, its speakers. For more than a decade I have attempted to combine the disciplines of Semitic linguistics with archaeology.

As a field archaeologist, I feel intensely about communicating my documentation, and have placed as much as possible in internet fora, free of charge to users. This includes the open access archives for photos (in heidICON), data (in heiDATA) and entire published texts (PropylaeumDOK) of the Heidelberg University Library. Open Access publication in the net was a means to get my publications out as soon as possible, for readers in the host country and in the west, and overcome the bottleneck of conventional publication.

Von 1998 bis 2010 verlagerte ich meinen Forschungsschwerpunkt auf die alte befestigte Ḥimyarite Hauptstadt Ẓafār im jemenitischen nudschud (Hochland), die eine Perspektive auf den späten Vorislam von der anderen, bekannteren Seite Südarabiens ermöglichte. Diese große, stark zerstörte Fundstätte beleuchtete die Jahrhunderte kurz vor dem Aufkommen des Islam auf eine ganz andere Weise als Samad: Die antike Bevölkerung war viel dichter und die schriftlichen Quellen waren deutlich artikulierter als die für Oman. Ẓafār wurde mein zweites Zuhause, bis der Krieg dort die gesamte Region destabilisierte. Zeit und kollegiale Kontakte ermöglichten mir ein tiefes Interesse an der Interaktion zwischen Archäologie und arabischer Sprache, ihren Wurzeln und ihren Sprechern. Seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt versuche ich, die Disziplinen der semitischen Linguistik mit der Archäologie zu verbinden.

Als Feldarchäologe fühle ich mich intensiv in der Vermittlung meiner Dokumentation und habe so viel wie möglich kostenlos in Internetforen platziert. Dazu gehören die Open-Access-Archive für Fotos (in heidICON), Daten (in heiDATA) und ganze veröffentlichte Texte (PropylaeumDOK) der Heidelberger Universitätsbibliothek. Open-Access-Veröffentlichung im Netz war ein Mittel, um meine Publikationen so schnell wie möglich für die Leser im Gastland und im Westen herauszubringen und den Engpass der konventionellen Veröffentlichung zu überwinden.