Behnam Abu Al-Soof
Visiting Professor of Archaeology and the Ancient World and International Studies
Phone: 401-863-2008
Dr. Al-Soof is an archaeologist with over thirty-five years of teaching experience. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University (1966) and has lectured extensively in the United States, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Germany and Yemen. He has held professorships in archaeology and has also been head of the Department of History at a university in Iraq, as well as the head of the Institute of Advanced Historical Studies at the Arab Historian Association. He has published several works in Arabic and English and has directed multiple excavations in prehistoric and historical sites in the Middle East; the results of many of these excavations were published in English and Arabic.
This scholar's contributions to his field were recognized and, in the 1970s, he was appointed Director General of Antiquities of the North, a position which gave him full responsibility for all of northern Iraq, including ancient Assyria.
He continues his work as Scientific Advisor to the Antiquities Department and to the Iraq Museum today, in spite of current conditions, and continues to supervise PhD and Master's theses. He is currently working on a book on his life's work to be published in English.
Dr. Al-Soof has come to Brown for the 2008 calendar year to teach and research in safety.