The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq) is the only body in Britain devoted to research into the ancient civilizations and languages of Mesopotamia. It was founded in 1932 and its aims are to support and undertake research into the archaeology (and cognate subjects) of Iraq and the neighbouring countries from the earliest times to c. AD 1700, and to promote the cultural heritage of Iraq. The School publishes the refereed annual journal Iraq.
It is a registered charity [1] and has its headquarters in the office of the British Academy at Carlton House Terrace in London.
The School was founded in 1932 as a memorial to the life and works of Gertrude Bell. Bell was passionate about archaeology and bequeathed £6,000 for its founding when she died in 1926. Further fundraising in 1929 added £14,000, and although the Great Depression left the fund depleted, the school was established in 1932. [2] Its initial purpose was to fund excavations by archaeologists and provide scholarship to British students working on archaeological projects in Iraq.
The School carried out excavations in Iraq before the Second World War. Activities resumed in 1948, and the School worked continuously from then until 1990. Since then the School has been prevented by political circumstances from resuming its research activities. However, friendly relations with the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and contact with Iraqi colleagues have been maintained, mainly through private visits.
The School was funded by a grant from the British Government starting in 1946, which allowed it to establish a base in Baghdad. Its first director was Max Mallowan whose wife was Agatha Christie who wrote Murder in Mesopotamia . Among the notable projects the school was involved in was the excavation at Nimrud. [2]
In the aftermath of 2003 invasion of Iraq, the school devoted its resources to assisting in the rebuilding of Iraq's heritage. Funding from the British government however halved in 2007, and then stopped completely in 2009. The school also receives an income from private sources. It currently has about 650 subscribing members. It is governed by a Council, which meets in London and is elected annually by the members, under Regulations approved by the original members in 1932 but recently revised.
On 12 December 2007 the organization's name was changed to The British Institute for the Study of Iraq. It also broadened it scope to promoting Iraqi cultural heritage and engaging in partnerships and collaborations with Iraqi archaeologists. Since the 1990s it has also funded Iraqi students studying in Britain. It helped in the creation of the Basra Museum opened in 2016. [2]
In 2011 the BISI sold one-third of its collection of Nimrud Ivories, discovered between 1949 and 1963 in excavations led by Sir Max Mallowan, to the British Museum for £1.17 million. [3] Another third was donated to the British Museum in recognition of the storage of the collection by the museum over the previous 24 years. It is anticipated that the remaining third of the collection will be returned to Iraq sometime in the future. [4] [5] A selection of the ivories was put on display at the British Museum in 2011. [5]
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Since 1934, the School has published a refereed journal, Iraq, which is now published annually, in November/December of each year.
The Gertrude Bell Memorial Gold Medal is awarded by the BISI for "outstanding services to Mesopotamian archaeology". As of 2019 [update] , there have been five recipients: [9]
Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in south Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 km (10 mi) from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq. The city dates from the Ubaid period circa 3800 BC, and is recorded in written history as a city-state from the 26th century BC, its first recorded king being King Tuttues.
Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city of Mosul, and 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of the village of Selamiyah, in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1350 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab. The city covered an area of 360 hectares. The ruins of the city were found within one kilometre (1,100 yd) of the modern-day Assyrian village of Noomanea in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1949.
Tell Brak was an ancient city in Syria; its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The city's original name is unknown. During the second half of the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar and later on, Nawar.
Chagar Bazar is a tell, or settlement mound, in northern Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria. It is a short distance from the major ancient city of Nagar. The site was occupied from the Halaf period until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.
Seton Howard Frederick Lloyd,, was an English archaeologist. He was President of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology, University of London (1962–1969).
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.
Henry William Frederick Saggs was an English classicist and orientalist.
The Department of the Middle East, numbering some 330,000 works, forms a significant part of the collections of the British Museum, and the world's largest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. The collections represent the civilisations of the ancient Near East and its adjacent areas.
Tell Arpachiyah is a prehistoric archaeological site in Nineveh Province (Iraq). It takes its name from a more recent village located about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Nineveh. The local name of the mound on which the site is located is Tepe Reshwa.
The Nimrud ivories are a large group of small carved ivory plaques and figures dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC that were excavated from the Assyrian city of Nimrud during the 19th and 20th centuries. The ivories mostly originated outside Mesopotamia and are thought to have been made in the Levant and Egypt, and have frequently been attributed to the Phoenicians due to a number of the ivories containing Phoenician inscriptions. They are foundational artefacts in the study of Phoenician art, together with the Phoenician metal bowls, which were discovered at the same time but identified as Phoenician a few years earlier. However, both the bowls and the ivories pose a significant challenge as no examples of either – or any other artefacts with equivalent features – have been found in Phoenicia or other major colonies.
John Nicholas Postgate, FBA is a British academic and Assyriologist. From 1975 to 1981, he was Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. From 1994 to 2013, he was Professor of Assyriology at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Edward Ernest David Michael Oates,, known as David Oates, was a British archaeologist and academic specializing in the Ancient Near East. He was director of the excavations at Nimrud from 1958 to 1962, Tell al-Rimah from 1964 to 1971 and at Tell Brak from 1976 to 2004. He was Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology from 1969 to 1982 and Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research from 1997 to 2004.
Joan Louise Oates, FBA was an American-British archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Ancient Near East. From 1971 to 1995 she was a Fellow and tutor of Girton College, Cambridge, and a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. From 1995 she was a Senior Research Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. From 2004 she was director of the excavations of Tell Brak, having been co-director, with her husband, David Oates, between 1988 and 2004.
Stephanie Mary Dalley FSA is a British Assyriologist and scholar of the Ancient Near East. Prior to her retirement, she was a teaching Fellow at the Oriental Institute, Oxford. She is known for her publications of cuneiform texts and her investigation into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her proposal that it was situated in Nineveh, and constructed during Sennacherib's rule.
Katharine Elizabeth, Lady Woolley was a British military nurse and archaeologist who worked principally at the Mesopotamian site of Ur. She was married to archaeologist Leonard Woolley.
Barbara, Lady Mallowan, was an English archaeologist, Assyriologist, and epigraphist who specialised in cylinder seals.
Mona Lisa of Nimrud refers to a carved ivory piece of art discovered in the city of Nimrud in a campaign of excavation from 1949 to 1963, led by Sir Max Mallowan. It is one of the most well known of the Nimrud ivories. It has also been known as the “Lady of the Well.”. In contrast, another sculpture found with it was named "Ugly Sister."
The Queens' Tombs at Nimrud are a set of four tombs discovered by Muzahim Hussein at the site of what was once the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. Once the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Nimrud was located on the East bank of the Tigris river, in what would be modern day Northern Iraq. Nimrud became the second capital of the Assyrian empire during the ninth century BCE, under Assurnasirpal II. Assurnasirpal II expanded the city and built one of the most significant architectural achievements at Nimrud, the Northwest Palace––bētānu in Assyrian. The palace was the first of many built by Neo-Assyrian rulers, and it became a template for later palaces. During an excavation of the Northwest Palace in 1988, the Queen's Tombs were discovered under the Southern, domestic wing. All four tombs discovered within the palace were built during the ninth and eighth centuries and were primarily constructed of the mudbrick, baked brick, and limestone ––materials commonly used in Mesopotamian architecture. The architecture of the tombs as well as the Northwest Palace within which they are housed provide historical insight into the Assyrian Empire's building techniques. The most notable items found within the queens' tombs included hundreds of pieces of fine jewelry, pottery, clothing, and tablets. These objects crafted by Neo-Assyrian artists would later allow archaeologists to build on their understanding of Neo-Assyrian goldsmithing techniques. Each tomb was built in advance of a queen's death and construction began as early as the 9th century under Assurnasirpal II and continued under Shalmaneser III.
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