27f835d691c2e812380eeafa81bf8a9Damian was born in South Africa, holds South African and Dutch nationalities, and speaks English (first language), Dutch and German. He has a PhD in Ancient History and his interests include travelling, social anthropology, foreign cultures and wisdom texts with an emphasis on ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine, Greece and Rome. He dislikes sea food intensely. His research focuses on social history with the aim of deducing the everyday experiences of people in society by examining written sources (literature, economic, legal, medical, and religious), iconographic sources and archaeological sources. His PhD research was conducted at Tuebingen University (Germany) and examined the interaction of beer and wine with social status in ancient Egypt according to the factors of production, consumption, health, economic exchange and distribution, and religion.

He has travelled to 30 countries and has taught in China for four years at Shijiazhuang Tiedao University. Prior to this, he was a data analyst at Thomson Reuters in Poland, a guest researcher at Tuebingen University in Germany under the German Academic Research Service (DAAD); and an English instructor in South Korea. He has published in the humanities and examined the interaction of alcoholic beverages with status and how coffee influenced human society.