Professor Anthony J. Frendo FSA is Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible at the University of Malta in the Department of Oriental Studies; he is also a member of the Department of Classics and Archaeology. He was formerly Head of both these Departments: Classics and Archaeology (1996-1999); Oriental Studies (1999-30th September 2011) when he helped develop the former department and virtually build the latter. He was also the Maltese Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Malta from 2009 till 2018. His main area of interest and expertise is the Levant with a special focus on Biblical Archaeology and Northwest Semitic languages, especially Classical Hebrew and Phoenician-Punic Inscriptions.

Between 1987-88, he lectured on the archaeology and geography of Palestine at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He participated in archaeological excavations in Israel and Syria. In the latter country he was also associate director for the 1995 season of excavation at Tell in-Nebi Mendu in a joint project with University College, London. He was - from 1996 up to 1999 co-director of the excavations at Tas-Silġ (Malta) run by the Department of Classics and Archaeology, of the University of Malta. In 1994 he was invited as a visiting scholar by the Jacob Blaustein International Center for Desert Studies of the University of Beersheba, Israel, where he made research on nomadic archaeology. In 2001 he delivered a public lecture on ˜The Megalithic Temples and the Phoenician Period in Malta' at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. In the following year, he delivered one lecture on the Emergence of Ancient Israel (later published as a chapter in a book on Pre-Exilic Israel) in the Oxford Old Testament Seminar series, whilst in 2003 he gave a lecture (on Phoenician-Punic Malta) in the Oriental Institute's (University of Oxford) Seminar series, Topics in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Egyptology. He was twice elected (in 2003 and 2004) Visting Scholar of Wolfson College (Oxford) with Membership of the Common Room for most of Trinity Term in 2004 and 2005 respectively.