Professor Nicholas Postgate FBA
- Fellow type
- UK Fellow
- Year elected
- 1993
- Subjects
- Archaeology
- Sections
- Africa, Asia and the Middle East , Archaeology
Summary
Educated at the Link School, Malvern Link. then at West Downs School (Winchester) followed by Winchester College (1959-63). Went up to Trinity College Cambridge to read Classics but, influenced by David Oates, rapidly switched to Assyriology under J.V. Kinnier Wilson and J.M. Munn-Rankin. Graduated in 1967 (having spent one semester at Münster under W. von Soden) and took up an Assistant Lectureship in Akkadian at SOAS. Left SOAS after 4 years to take up a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, but almost immediately accepted the post of Assistant Director, British School of Archaeology in Iraq. This entailed residence for most of each year in Baghdad or in the field in Iraq. It gave the opportunity in 1973 to initiate an excavation at the Early Dynastic city of Abu Salabikh, south Iraq, a project which only came to an end in 1990 when the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. Returned to Cambridge in 1981 to take up a Lectureship in the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, converted to a chair in Assyriology (1994-2013). In the same year started excavation at the Bronze and Iron Age site of Kilise Tepe in Rough Cilicia. This lasted for 5 seasons, and was then resumed in 2007-2012.
Current post
Formerly Professor of Assyriology, University of Cambridge
Past appointments
University of Cambridge Formerly Professor of Assyriology
2014 -
University of Cambridge Professor of Assyriology, University of Cambridge
1994 - 2014
University of Cambridge Lecturer, Reader, Professor of Assyriology
1981 -
Soas, University Of London (Assistant) Lecturer
1967 - 1971
Publications
Other Fellows of the British Academy
Professor Matthew Collins FBA
Biomolecular archaeology; interdisciplinary approaches for the recovery and interpretation of molecular signals from ancient materials, with a specific focus on proteins and their breakdown products
Professor Rana Mitter FBA
The history and politics of modern China; history of twentieth-century China, in particular the Republican period (1912-1949) and Cold War; contemporary Chinese nationalism and Sino-Japanese relations
Professor Amy Bogaard FBA
The archaeology and ecology of early farming; comparative perspectives on recent farming systems; the social implications of agriculture, including for resilience and inequality
