Born in 1949 at Prague, then Czechoslovakia, Petr Charvát is currently Professor of the University of West Bohemia at Plzeň (Pilsen), Czech Republic. He has also teaching commitments at the Faculty of Education of Charles University, Prague, and at the Masaryk University of Brno. In addition to this, he is also active in the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic at Prague. He received a John William Fulbright grant in 2003-2004, studied Near Eastern archaeological materials at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Invited Lecturer at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques), Paris, France in 2008, with a course of lectures entitled »Les voies du commerce avec l’Orient, les trouvailles de monnaies islamiques et la naissance de l’étatisme chez les Slaves occidentaux au Haut Moyen Âge.«