Prof. Dr. Matthias Hardt

Matthias Hardt studied history, German language and literature, and prehistory and early history at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1980 to 1987 and graduated with a first state examination for teaching at secondary schools. In 1999, he was awarded his doctorate with a thesis entitled  »Gestalt und Funktion frühmittelalterlicher Königsschätze« [Form and Function of Early Medieval Royal Treasures] at the University of Marburg. From 1988 to 1993, he was a research assistant at the Department for Medieval History and Regional History at the University of Marburg and from 1993 to1997, a research assistant at the Chair for Regional History at the Humboldt University of Berlin. From 1997 to 1999 he was a research associate at the GWZO within the project »Germania Slavica«. Since 2000, he has been the subject coordinator for medieval history and Archaeology at the GWZO and since 2017 head of the department »Humans and Environment«.

Matthias Hardt has been Honorary Professor of the Early History and Archaeology of Central Europe at Leipzig University’s Department of History since February 2013.

• Interdisciplinary history of the early and high Middle Ages
• Comparative regional history
• Settlement, environmental and economic history of Central and Eastern Germany and East Central Europe

• Chairman of the Working Group for Historical Cultural Landscape Research in Central Europe [Arbeitskreis für historische Kulturlandschaftsforschung in Mitteleuropa] (ARKUM)
• Elected member of the International Saxon Symposium [Internationales Sachsensymposion] (Working Group on the Archaeology of the Saxons and their Neighbouring Peoples in Northwestern Europe)
• Elected member of the Historical Commission for Hesse [Historische Kommission für Hessen]
• Elected member of the Historical Commission Berlin [Historische Kommission zu Berlin]
• Member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Christian Lesser Foundation
• Member of the advisory board of the Archaeological Society of Saxony [Archäologische Gesellschaft in Sachsen e.V.] (AGiS)

Co-editor of the GWZO book series »Forschungen zu Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa« (Sandstein Verlag)

From 1993 to2000, Matthias Hardt taught at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Since 2000, he has been teaching at the History Department of the University of Leipzig on behalf of the Chairs of Medieval History, and Prehistory and Early History, and from 2009 to 2012 also at the Chair of Medieval and Modern Archaeology of the Institute of European Art History and Archaeologies of Europe of the Martin Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.