Vincent Michel is a Professor of Oriental Archaeology at the University of Poitiers, and holds a doctorate and a habilitation to direct research from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, as well as a law degree from the University of Paris-Saclay. As an archaeologist and Orientalist, he has been dividing his time between teaching, research, fieldwork and legal expertise for the past 30 years. He has been excavating in the Palestinian territories since 1994 (Emmaüs, Taybeh, Hebron). He has taken part in a number of projects in Jordan and set up a mission in Bazyan in Iraqi Autonomous Kurdistan in 2011. He has carried out several survey missions in Syria and Lebanon. In addition to his work in the Middle East, he has been working in Libya since 2001, where he has headed the French archaeological mission since 2011. A specialist in Late Antiquity, he is mainly interested in Eastern Christian archaeology, studying the monuments with an interdisciplinary approach, text and context. An expert in the fight against the illicit trafficking of archaeological objects from the Orient (objects, routes and networks), he teaches this topic within several universities.