David Stronach (1931 – 2020), eminent archaeologist and founding Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies, passed away peacefully at his home in San Francisco on 27 June2020. He was surrounded by his loving family, including his two daughters Keren and Tami.
After reading archaeology and anthropology at St John’s College Cambridge David embarked in 1954 on various excavations in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, supported by fellowships from the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.  He worked at the Neo-Assyrian site of Nimrud in northern Iraq with (Sir) Max Mallowan, husband of Agatha Christie, between 1957 and 1960 , and it was here at Nimrud that the idea of an institute in Iran was developed by Mallowan, although the original proposal to set up a British institute in Iran had come from ‘a Persian gentleman named Majid  Movaghar … who had also approached the Shah about the plan’ and had ‘obtained a general blessing for it’ (Mortimer Wheeler, The British Academy 1949 – 1968, Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 77).
Together with Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Sir Maurice Bowra, Sir Max Mallowan took the idea of an Institute in Tehran further, and during a state visit by H.M. the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Iran in March 1961, the plan was discussed with Iranian officials and academics at the University of Tehran. The British Institute of Persian Studies was formally opened on 11 December 1961 at premises made available by the University of Tehran, and David  who was  the British Academy Archaeological Attaché in Iran in 1960-61, became the first Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS) in 1961. The first Institute was in Kucheh Khorshid, then it relocated to Khiaban-i Takht-i Jamshid (now Taleghani) where a house was rented from Mr Firuz Maddon, a Parsi from Mumbai who had settled in Iran.
It was here at Khiaban-i Takht-e Jamshid that I first met David Stronach in 1973. I was a young undergraduate student of archaeology at the University of Göttingen in Germany , and my professor Klaus Schippmann, who was a friend of David’s and had worked with him at Tappeh Nush-i Jan, urged me to write to David and ask if I could join his dig. Back on holiday in Tehran, I went to meet David Stronach. I was greeted in a warm and vibrant atmosphere, and David agreed to take me with him to Nush-i Jan for the 1974 season. I also met David’s Assistant Director, Sandy Morton, and Ruth Stronach.
David had met Ruth Vaadia, a fellow archaeologist from Israel, in Iran. She had come to work on the American excavations at Chogha Mish in 1966. They married soon after, and their two daughters Keren and Tami were both born in Iran.
The small house in Takht-e Jamshid buzzed with life, as students and scholars from the UK, US, Canada, and Iran gathered there en route to various excavations.   In addition to Sandy Morton, Brian Spooner, David Blow, Tony Hutt, Bernard O’Kane and in the late seventies Martin Charlesworth were David’s assistants,  and his secretaries included Vashti Noel-Clarke, Mariam Emamy, Sheri Majd and Margaret Karapetian.
On 17th October 1977 new purpose-built premises were officially opened by Empress Farah in Gholhak in northern Tehran on land leased from the British Embassy. Also present at the ceremony was Sir Max Mallowan. The laying of the Foundation Stone of the building had happened two years earlier in April 1975 by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. BIPS  was now one of the centres of academic life for archeologists of pre-Revolution Iran, and with David and Ruth’s charisma and hospitality it was popular with travelling scholars and students who spent part of their studies in Tehran or stopped there on their way to archaeological missions in other parts of the country.
David’s excavations in Iran began with Yarim Tappeh in 1960 and 1962. This 2nd millennium BC site was situated in the Gorgan Plain of northern Iran. Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus the Great in Fars Province was David’s next major excavation and he worked there between 1961 and 1963 with the full support of his mentor Max Mallowan, who had special memories of the site as ‘he and Agatha,…, spent part of their honeymoon there in 1931.’ (David Stronach, ‘Obituary Sir Max Mallowan, IRAN XVII, 1979, p.vi).
Pasargadae was followed by excavations at Tappeh Nush-i Jan in the Malayer Plain of western Iran from 1967 to 1978.  This 6th -7th century BC site proved to be the most important Median settlement to be excavated to date. During this period David employed a number of excellent local workmen, amongst whom was the outstanding Seyyed Morteza Mousavi- affectionately known to us as Seyyed or Seyd Morteza- who had an eagle eye and sixth sense for archaeological remains. He became a life-long friend of David’s and accompanied him on other digs. Whenever David travelled to Iran after 1979, he always included a trip to Persepolis and Pasargadae, so that he could visit his dear friend.
David also worked jointly with Dr John Hansman at the Parthian site of Qumis, ancient Hecatompylos, near Damghan in northeastern Iran in 1967 and 1978. Ruth Stronach, often assisted by Alison Parsons (now Baroness Ross), studied the ceramics from both Nush-i Jan and Qumis, and the visits of Ruth and the young Stronach daughters – sometimes accompanied by their beloved dog Samba – to Nush-i Jan were eagerly anticipated. Locals and villagers admired Ruthie’s warmth and kindness, and they were very impressed with Ruth, Keren and Tami’s extraordinary fluency in Persian.
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought the activities of the vibrant BIPS Institute in Tehran to an end, and David and family were forced to settle abroad. In the summer of that year David organized a study season at Wolfson College Oxford, and many members of previous seasons of Nush-i Jan excavations gathered together for two months to work on post-excavation processing. After a short period in London, when the family lived in a flat in Belsize Park, they left for the US, as David had found a temporary teaching job as Visiting Professor at the University of Arizona. From there they moved to California in 1981 when David was appointed Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of California at Berkeley. The Stronachs settled for good in northern California, and David enjoyed his teaching career there. In 1987 David turned his attention to excavations in northern Iraq and the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Â He worked there for three seasons, followed by excavations in Armenia, Russia and Turkey from 1994 to 2010. But David never broke his ties with Iran, he visited the country after 1979 and kept contact with colleague who admired and revered him.
In 1981 David became an Honorary Vice-President of BIPS, and in 2014 he gave a BIPS lecture on ‘The Gardens at Pasargadae’ to a packed audience at the British Academy. He was accompanied by his wife Ruth on this trip, and both enjoyed seeing old friends and colleagues. David received many national and international honours: Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1963; an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1975; member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in 1973; the Prix Ghirshman by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris in 1979; and associate member of the Belgian Academy in 1988. In 2004 he was awarded by the Archaeological Institute of America the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement.
David taught and trained numerous students, many of them from Iran, both on his excavations as well as at Berkeley. He was very helpful and remained in touch with colleagues from Iran and in Iran, as well as all other friends. He forged many deep friendships during his time in Iran, including the eminent archaeologist Professor Ezat O. Negahban of Tehran University, and Dr Firuz Bagherzadeh, the then Director of the Archaeological Research Centre of Iran.
There are many of us who owe an enormous debt to David. He was not only a teacher or colleague but also a friend. He will be greatly missed across the world.
Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
