St John Simpson – författare

Interest and fascination in Achaemenid Persia has burgeoned in recent years. It is time for a major new appraisal of the glorious civilization founded by Cyrus the Great and continued by his successors, the Great Kings Darius I, Xerxes and Artaxerxes I. This volume offers precisely that: a sustained and comprehensive overview of the field of Achaemenid studies by leading scholars and experts. It discusses all aspects of Achaemenid history and archaeology between 550 BCE and 330 BCE, and embraces the whole vast territory of the Persian Empire from North Africa to India and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. Topics covered in this title include aspects of Achaemenid religion, administration, material culture, ethnicity, gender and the survival of Achaemenid traditions. The publication of the book is an event: it represents a watershed not only in better appreciation and understanding of the rich and complex cultural heritage established by Cyrus, but also of the lasting significance of the Achaemenid kings and the impact that their remarkable civilization has had on wider Persian and Middle Eastern history.First published by I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation

Stone containers have been made and used in the Middle East for over eleven millennia where they pre-dated the invention of pottery and were widely traded. The appearance or properties of the stone helped govern how stone vessels were valued or used and many classes were strictly utilitarian, being used for storage, cooking or lighting. Others were decorated and at times they were considered valuable exotica, particularly in regions far removed from their source areas. The subject of stone vessels is attracting growing attention but this is the first attempt to bring together different approaches to the study of softstone vessels, particularly but not exclusively those carved from varieties of chlorite, and covering all periods from prehistory to the present.

In Context: the Reade Festschrift is a collection of invited and peer-reviewed essays by friends and colleagues of Julian Edgeworth Reade, sometime Mesopotamia curator at the British Museum from 1975 to 2000. Its coverage is designed to reflect the breadth of the recipient’s professional interests, from Assyria and Mesopotamia in general, to the relations between Mesopotamia and other regions and the impact of nineteenth-century discoveries on the field of Assyriology. They include both syntheses and archaeological research, as well as reports on archival discoveries. Context is always crucial. Here is fresh work from which any reader can gain a new appreciation of the importance of the ancient Near East.

To Aleppo Gone ... is a festschrift offered in honour of Jonathan Tubb, former Levant curator and Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. It includes 44 contributions invited from Jonathan’s friends and colleagues from across the world, with each short essay exploring a single idea and its wider ramifications. The assembled volume also reflects the development of Jonathan’s own career and professional interests, with a focus on the Jordan Valley and southern Levant, but also extending to north Syria, Mesopotamia, the protection of endangered cultural heritage, and the lives of early archaeological pioneers.The editors are all former colleagues of Jonathan, and curators in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum.

Gold, Silver and Glass takes an innovative approach to our understanding of cultural interaction in antiquity. It contains 14 papers arising from an international conference held at the British Museum in June 2023 and associated with the special exhibition Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece. The papers are by invited specialists ranging from the UK, America, France and Greece to Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, China and Japan. They are divided into two parts, focused on cultural and technological interactions respectively. The first examines definitions of Greek and Eurasian culture, challenges perceptions and creates new avenues of research. The second looks critically at issues of metrology and value of silver in antiquity, and presents case-studies containing new scientific analyses of Achaemenid, Saka and Chinese gold and silverwares, and gold-leaf glass.

Interest and fascination in Achaemenid Persia has burgeoned in recent years. It is time for a major new appraisal of the glorious civilization founded by Cyrus the Great and continued by his successors, the Great Kings Darius I, Xerxes and Artaxerxes I. This volume offers precisely that: a sustained and comprehensive overview of the field of Achaemenid studies by leading scholars and experts. It discusses all aspects of Achaemenid history and archaeology between 550 BCE and 330 BCE, and embraces the whole vast territory of the Persian Empire from North Africa to India and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. Topics covered in this title include aspects of Achaemenid religion, administration, material culture, ethnicity, gender and the survival of Achaemenid traditions. The publication of the book is an event: it represents a watershed not only in better appreciation and understanding of the rich and complex cultural heritage established by Cyrus, but also of the lasting significance of the Achaemenid kings and the impact that their remarkable civilization has had on wider Persian and Middle Eastern history.

Contents: 1) Coastal prehistory in the southern Red Sea Basin, underwater archaeology, and the Farasan Islands (Geoff Bailey, Abdullah AlSharekh, Nic Flemming, Kurt Lambeck, Garry Momber, Anthony Sinclair & Claudio Vita-Finzi); 2) Chronologie et evolution de l'architecture a Makaynun: la formation d'un centre urbain a l'epoque sudarabique dans le Hadramawt (A. Benoist, O. Lavigne, M. Mouton & J. Schiettecatte); 3) A preliminary study on the materials employed in ancient Yemeni mummification and burial practices (summary) (Stephen A. Buckley, Joann Fletcher, Khalid Al-Thour, Mohammed Basalama & Don R. Brothwell); 4) From Safer to Balhaf: rescue excavations along the Yemen LNG pipeline route (Remy Crassard & Holger Hitgen); 5) Pastoral nomadic communities of the Holocene climatic optimum: excavation and research at Kharimat Khor al-Manahil and Khor al-Manahil in the Rub al-Khali, Abu Dhabi (Richard Cuttler, Mark Beech, Heiko Kallweit, Anja Zander & Walid Yasin Al-Tikriti); 6) Flip the coin. Preliminary results of compositional EDX analyses on south-east Arabian coins from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, UAE) (Parsival Delrue); 7) Spreading the Neolithic over the Arabian Peninsula (Philipp Drechsler); 8) Water and waste in mediaeval Zabid, Yemen (Ingrid Hehmeyer); 9) Tribal links between the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle Euphrates at the beginning of the second millennium BC (Christine Kepinski); 10) Rare photographs from the 1930s and 1940s by Yihye Haybi, a Yemenite Jew from Sana: historical reality and ethnographic deductions (Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper); 11) Stargazing in traditional water management: a case study in northern Oman (Harriet Nash); 12) Al Qisha: archaeological investigations at an Islamic period Yemeni village (Audrey Peli & Florian Tereygeol, Al-Radrad (al-Jabali): a Yemeni silver mine, first results of the French mission (2006) (Lynne S. Newton); 13) A biographical sketch of Britain's first Sabaeologist: Colonel W.F. Prideaux, CSI (Carl Phillips & St J. Simpson); 14) The Arabian Corridor Migration Model: archaeological evidence for hominin dispersals into Oman during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene (Jeffrey Rose); 15) Ceramic production in mediaeval Yemen: the Yadgat kiln site (Axelle Rougeulle); 16) The word slm/snm and some words for "statue, idol" in Arabian and other Semitic languages (Fiorella Scagliarini); 16) "Transformation processes in oasis settlements in Oman" 2005 archaeological survey at the oasis of Nizwa: a preliminary report (Juergen Schreiber); 17) Middle Palaeolithic — or what? New sites in Sharjah, UAE (Julie Scott-Jackson, William Scott-Jackson & Sabah Jasim); 18) Rites and funerary practices at Rawk during the fourth millennium BC (Wadi ‘Idim, Yemen) (T. Steimer-Herbet, J-F. Saliege, T. Sagory, O. Lavigne & A. as-Saqqaf, in collaboration with M. Mashkour & H. Guy); 19) The sources on the Fitna of Masud b. Amr al-Azdi and their uses for Basran tribal history (Brian Ulrich); 20) The beads of ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, UAE) (An De Waele); 21) Aspects of recent archaeological work at al-Balid (Íafar), Sultanate of Oman (Juris Zarins); 22) Towards a new theory: the state of Bani Mahdi, the fourth imamate in Yemen (Ahmad b. Umar al-Zaylai).