Lieve Staes

The bioanthropologist Jessica Palmer directs the lab at the Ghent Archaeological Science Centre. Together with her colleagues, she examined the bones of a woman who had rested for more than a thousand years in front of the entrance to St Peter's Church in Ghent. Was this Judith, the first countess of Flanders? 

Steven Vanderputten is a professor of history at Ghent University. He conducts scholarly research into our medieval society and culture, with a predilection for the period from the 9th to the 12th century – a period he is definitely does not wish to call ‘the dark Middle Ages’.

The conservator Kathleen Froyen has been working full-time on The Ghent Altarpiece since 2018. She coordinates the conservation studio at the Museum of Fine Arts and sits on many steering committees and advisory committees, but most of all, she enjoys getting behind the microscope herself to do some real work: the conservation of Van Eyck's magnum opus.