Just published: ‘To Aleppo gone …’: Essays in honour of Jonathan N. Tubb

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‘To Aleppo gone …’ is a festschrift offered in honour of Jonathan Tubb, former Levant curator and Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, who retired in April 2022. It includes 44 peer-reviewed contributions invited from Jonathan’s friends and colleagues, past and present, young and old. It is a testimony to Jonathan that they represent a dozen countries on three continents, with each short essay exploring a single idea and its wider ramifications, and carefully arranged in alphabetical order within regional and thematic sections.

This volume reflects the development of Jonathan’s own career and professional interests, with a particular focus on the Jordan Valley and southern Levant, including seven papers dealing with different aspects of Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, where he directed the excavations from 1985 to 1996. Others discuss the obsidian in northern Mesopotamia, the fortifications of Tell Nebi Mend, Syrian wall-paintings, Sumerian lyres, drinking straws, figurines, temples, and Assyria, while four papers discuss different aspects of Phoenician ivories. A fourth section looks at cultural heritage, including new inside accounts of the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder to Tehran in 2010, and the amazing steps taken by our Syrian colleagues to safeguard their museum collections during the civil war. The lives and work of early archaeological pioneers form a fifth section, including John Garstang, while previously unpublished correspondence between Robert Lamon and James Starkey throws new insights into the Megiddo water system, and the close relationship between Flinders Petrie and Leonard Woolley. Museum displays are the subject of three other papers, including the British Museum and the Palestine Archaeological Museum, and a reprint of Jonathan’s latest paper which details the history of display of the ancient Levant in the British Museum, and shows how he transformed it and the collection into one with an emphasis on archaeological context and cultural continuity.

The volume includes a list of Jonathan’s own publications, and concludes with an index of subjects, names and places. It forms volume 10 in the Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology series.

‘To Aleppo gone …’: Essays in honour of Jonathan N. Tubb (Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 10) is edited by I.L. Finkel, J.A. Fraser and St J. Simpson, and published by Archaeopress (Oxford): ISBN 978-1-80327-470-6.

Version française

To Aleppo gone …” est un livre de mélanges offert à Jonathan Tubb, ancien conservateur des antiquités du Levant et conservateur en chef des antiquités orientales au British Museum, qui a pris sa retraite en avril 2022. Il comprend 44 contributions d’amis et de collègues de tous âges et de tous lieux géographiques, évaluées par des pairs. Ces contributions proviennent d’une douzaine de pays sur trois continents, ce qui témoigne des vastes relations de la personne honorée. Les contributions, classées par ordre alphabétique dans des sections régionales et thématiques, célèbrent le travail de Jonathan et reflètent sa carrière et ses intérêts professionnels. Ainsi, les deux premières sections sont consacrées aux régions sur lesquelles Jonathan a concentré ses recherches : la vallée du Jourdain – avec sept contributions sur Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, le site où Jonathan Tubb a dirigé les fouilles de 1985 à 1996 – et le Levant Sud. La troisième section, consacrée à la région syro-mésopotamienne, comprend 14 articles qui traitent de sujets variés : de l’obsidienne du nord de la Mésopotamie aux fortifications de Tell Nebi Mend, des peintures murales syriennes aux lyres sumériennes, des pailles à boire aux figurines en bronze, de l’orientation des temples aux ivoires phéniciens. Une quatrième section est consacrée au patrimoine culturel, avec notamment les témoignages sur le prêt du cylindre de Cyrus à Téhéran en 2010 et les mesures étonnantes prises par nos collègues syriens pour sauvegarder leurs collections muséales pendant la guerre civile. La vie et le travail des premiers pionniers de l’archéologie forment une cinquième et dernière section : une rétrospective sur John Garstang, la relation étroite entre Flinders Petrie et Leonard Woolley, et la correspondance inédite entre Robert Lamon et James Starkey qui jette un nouvel éclairage sur le système d’adduction d’eau de Megiddo. Dans cette section sont publiées les contributions sur les expositions muséales, notamment du British Museum et du Palestine Archaeological Museum. Enfin, la postface reprend le dernier article de Jonathan sur l’histoire de l’exposition des objets levantins au British Museum : de la « Palestinian Room » à la « Levant Gallery » c’est l’histoire de la transformation de cette collection basée désormais sur le contexte archéologique et la continuité culturelle.

Le volume comprend une liste des publications de Jonathan et se termine par un index des sujets, des noms et des lieux. Il constitue le volume 10 de la série Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology.

‘To Aleppo gone …’ : Essays in honour of Jonathan N. Tubb est édité par I.L. Finkel, J.A. Fraser et St J. Simpson, et publié par Archaeopress Archaeology (Oxford) : ISBN 978-1-80327-470-6.

St John Simpson

I am an archaeologist and senior curator in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, responsible for the collections from Iran, Arabia and Central Asia, and specialising in the archaeology and material culture of the Sasanian and early Islamic periods. I am also responsible for managing relations and processes across the Museum by which stolen or illicitly trafficked antiquities identified by the Museum on behalf of law enforcement, the art trade or private individuals can be exhibited, published and repatriated to their countries of origin. I have directed excavations in Iraq and Turkmenistan, and worked on other projects in Georgia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Russia. I strongly believe that working across modern political borders helps us to better understand and appreciate cultures, ancient and modern, and that museums offer a powerful means of engaging with multiple audiences and stakeholders, inclusive of academic, popular, governmental, old and young. Archaeology and fieldwork also enable us to re-interpret old collections, and that is an essential part of museum research and curation. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9884-7637

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