David Stronach

June 10, 1931-June 27, 2020

David Stronach, eminent archaeologist and founding Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies (1961-79) passed away peacefully on June 27th, surrounded by his loving family at the age of 89. One of the world’s leading scholars in the field of ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology, with particular expertise in first millennium BC empires in Mesopotamia and Iran, Stronach led excavations in some of the most significant archaeological sites in Iran, including Pasargadae, the capital of the Persian King, Cyrus the Great; Nush-i Jan, a Median religious site; and Shahr-i Qumis, an early Parthian capital. In Iraq, Stronach directed the UC Berkeley Expedition to the site of Nineveh, the renown Assyrian capital city familiar to many through the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale. More recently, with Iran and Iraq largely inaccessible for fieldwork, he had turned his attentions to the Caucasus. In 1992 he initiated, with other colleagues, an international research project in Armenia, Dagestan, and Georgia, thus opening a door to archaeological field research in areas of the former Soviet Union which were at that time relatively unexplored. Appointed as Professor of Ancient Near

Eastern Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley in 1981, Stronach became a well-loved and highly respected Professor, and his formidable scholarship was a key factor in making UC Berkeley one of the foremost institutions in the world for the study of the ancient Near East, and of Iran in particular. Among his many accolades, Stronach was awarded the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement in 2004. He was preceded in death by his wife Ruth, who passed away in 2017. He is survived by his daughters Keren Stronach and Tami Stronach (who played the childlike Empress in the NeverEnding Story) and three grandchildren.