John Hansman graduated from the State University of Iowa and
subsequently served with the U.S. Navy Submarine Staff Corps. From
1957-1960, he worked in the administration of an economic development
program of the Kurdish region, Northeast Iraq. In Iraq, he had been
introduced to archaeology when salvage excavating a 6000 year old simple
burial site. During the early 1960s, he served two years on the
administrative staff in Southwestern Iran. He moved to Britain during
the mid-1960s to complete a PhD in archaeology at the School of Oriental
Studies, University of London. His thesis required historical surveys
of ancient cultural sites in adjoining areas of Southern Iraq and Iran.
Following graduation in 1970, Hansman remained in Britain some 20
further years, researching and publishing papers on ancient Middle
Eastern cultures and historical geography, while periodically revisiting
those regions to excavate and carry out archaeological reconnaissance.
His excavations include:
- 1965
– Located Spasinou Charax. Capital of the small Parthian (Iranian)
vassel state of Mesene (Characene) located on the Tigres river flood
plain of Southern Iraq, a city that flourished ca. 129 B.C. – 220 A.D.
- 1966
– Located Hecatompylos, Greek name of an early Persian settlement
refounded by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.; later Iranian Qumis,
flourished second and first century B.C. as winter capital of the
Parthian empire. Cultural debris of this now isolated site, which
extends some 2.5 miles, contains eroded remains of large mud brick
structures.
- 1970 – Identified the site of Anshan, a
royal capital of the Elamite civilization in South Iran; which
flourished ca. 2300-1600 B.C.
- During three seasons,
Hansman served as co-director, under the British Institute of Persian
Studies, at the Hecatompylos site. The last of these operations closed
down after four weeks following outbreak, in 1979, of the Iranian
revolution.
- Over two seasons, he directed
archaeological excavations at the medieval Islamic port site of Julfar
on the Persian Gulf, in the United Arab Emirates.
In
1971-72, while based at London, Hansman organized an appeal for the
sesquicentennial anniversary of the Royal Asiatic Society. He also
mounted an exhibition of the Society's history and co-organized a
symposium of international scholars on un-deciphered and little
understood ancient Asian languages.
In 1977 and
2002 Hansman was commissioned by the successive curators at Iolani
Palace (former residence of the Hawaiian kings), Honolulu, to identify
ceramic material recovered from utility trenches successively opened on
the palace grounds. These pieces consisted mostly of sherds from a
variety of formal dinner ware used in two older, smaller palace
residences that occupied that property earlier in the 1800s.
In
1980 he was elected a Research Fellow at Clare Hall graduate college,
Cambridge University. Hansman was decorated in 1983 by Shaykh Saqr bin
Mohammad al-Qasimi, ruler of Ra's-al-Khaimah, of the United Arab
Emirates, for excavations undertaken over-several-years at the early,
port site of Julfar on the Persian Gulf.
Dr.
Hansman is an affiliate of Clare Hall, Cambridge University; a Life
Fellow, Society of Antiquaries and Fellow Honoris Causa, Royal Asiatic
Society, all in the United Kingdom.
David
Stronach (born 1931) is a Scottish archeologist of ancient Iran and
Iraq. He is an emeritus professor at the University of California,
Berkeley. He is an expert on Pasargadae. Stronach was educated at
Gordonstoun and Cambridge University. During the 1960s and 1970s he was
Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran. In the
1990s, he excavated several parts of Nineveh. His scholarship has earned
him several honors and awards, including the invitation to deliver
endowed lectures at Harvard and Columbia. He is also the recipient of
the 2004 Archaeological Institute of America Gold Medal for
"Distinguished Archaeological Achievement".
During
his time in Iran, he met Ruth Vaadia (1937–2017), an Israeli
archeologist who was also working in Iran, and married her. They have
two daughters, The family left Iran at the time of the 1979 Iranian
Revolution He became a professor at Berkeley in 1981 and retired in
2004.
Warwick Ball is an Australian-born
Near-eastern archeologist. In the past 30 years, Ball has mainly
excavated in Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Ball was
formerly director of excavations at The British School of Archaeology in
Iraq. He currently resides in Scotland.
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