Pieter van der Veen was born in the Netherlands. He studied theology in Leuven-Heverelee (Belgium). In his MA thesis he investigated the phenomenon of the Ḫabiru in the Amarna Letters and of the 'Ibrim (Hebrews) in 1Samuel (submitted in 1989, unpublished). He also took classes in Syro-Palestinian archaeology at the University of Leuven and in Akkadian at the University of Bern. He earned his PhD in Old Testament Studies and Biblical Archaology from the University of Bristol (Trinity College, Bristol, UK, completed in 2005). His doctoral thesis deals with inscribed seals from stratified Iron Age II contexts in Israel and Jordan (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 415, 2014). He pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Mainz (completed 2018). His postdoctoral thesis dealt with the chronological parameters of Iron Age Chronology in ancient Israel (Ägypten und Altes Testament 98, 2020). In 2019 and 2020 he was employed by the university as deputy professor of Biblical Archaeology in the Dept. of Protestant Theology. He is currently a senior lecturer of Syro-Palestinian archaeology in the Dept. of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology at the Univ. of Mainz. He is also the leader of the German study forum "Arbeitsgruppe für Biblische Archaeologie” and a co-founder of the international forum BICANE (Bronze to Iron Age Chronology of the Ancient Near East).