St John Simpson

Assistant Keeper, Iran and Arabia

Ancient Iran and Arabia

Department: Middle East

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8942
Email: ssimpson @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

Dr Simpson is the senior curator responsible for the pre-Islamic collections from Iran and Arabia in the British Museum. Star items in these collections include the Oxus Treasure, the Cyrus cylinder, Sasanian silver dishes, and antiquities from ancient South Arabia.

He has a D. Phil. on the archaeology of the Sasanian period in Mesopotamia and his main research field is Sasanian material culture. He has excavated extensively in the Middle East and Central Asia, including sites of all periods from prehistoric to recent times.

Current British Museum projects

• Merv: publication of excavations 1992-2000
• Cataloguing Ancient South Arabia

Previous British Museum projects

• New gallery displays for ancient Iran and South Arabia
• Exhibition: Queen of Sheba: Treasures from ancient Yemen (BM, 2002)

External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies

• The Society for Arabian Studies: vice-chair, Secretary of the Grants committee and Joint Editor of Monograph Series
• Seminar for Arabian Studies: Steering and editoral committees
• Association for the History of Glass: Trustee
• Bead Study Trust: Chair

Publications

Most recent publications

D. Namdar, R. Stacey & St J. Simpson, ‘First results on thermally induced porosity in chlorite cooking vessels from Merv (Turkmenistan) and implications for the formation and preservation of archaeological lipid residues’, Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009), 2507-2516.

St J. Simpson, ‘The archaeology of the clay pipe in the Near East’, Al-Rafidan 30 (2009), 67-75.

St J. Simpson, ‘Ancient Merv: archaeological insights into the economy of the city during the Sasanian period (3^rd – 7^th centuries AD)’, Pp. 247-257 in The Turkmen Land as a Centre of Ancient Cultures and Civilizations: Materials of the International scientific conference, 1-3 October 2008 (Ashgabat 2008).

St J. Simpson, ‘Late Ottoman pipes from Jerusalem’, Pp. 433-436 in Excavations by K.M. Kenyon in Jerusalem 1961-1967, Volume V (ed. K. Prag). (Oxford 2008).

A. Middleton, A.P. Simpson & St J. Simpson, ‘The manufacture and decoration of Parthian glazed ‘slipper coffins’ from Warka’, The British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 2 (2008), 29-37.