Michael Douglas Roaf(born in May 20, 1947) is a British

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

specialising in ancient

Iranian studies Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...

and

Assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , '' -logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...

. Roaf studied the archaeology of Western Asia at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, and wrote his doctoral thesis, ''Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis'' (published 1983) at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. From 1981 to 1985 he was the director of the

British School of Archaeology in Iraq 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 aim ...

. He also taught at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and is currently Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

. Roaf has conducted fieldwork in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Bahrain. In Iran he dug at Tepe Nush-i Jan under the direction of

David Stronach David Brian Stronach (10 June 1931 – 27 June 2020) was a British archaeologist of ancient Iran and Iraq. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Stronach was an expert on the city of Pasargadae. He was educa ...

, with whom he wrote ''Nush-i Jan I. The Major Buildings of the Median Settlement''. With the Munich University team, he has recently worked on the archaeological expeditions at Gircano and Ziyaret Tepe, ancient

Tushhan Tushhan (also Tushan, or Tušhan) is a Kurdish village known as ( ku, Behramki) or ( ku, Tepe-i Barava) by residents. It was an ancient city in Mesopotamia and was a provincial capital in the upper Tigris river valley, on the south bank and inhabi ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

Works

* ''Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis'' (1983) - doctoral thesis. Published in full in ''Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies'' vol. XXI, 1983. * ''The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East'' (1990) - divulgation. * ''Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia'' (2003) - Proceedings of the International Meeting held in Padova, 2001; ed. with Giovanni B. Lanfranchi and

Robert Rollinger Robert Rollinger (born 17 September 1964 in Bludenz, Austria) is an ancient historian and Assyriologist, known for his works on Herodotus, the Persian-Achaemenid Empire, ancient empires and cross-cultural encountering in the ancient world. He is ...

References

External links

The World of Achaemenid Persia
British archaeologists English Assyriologists Iranologists Alumni of University College London University of California, Berkeley faculty Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Living people Assyriologists 1947 births {{UK-archaeologist-stub