The British Institute for the Study of Iraq is a UK charity. We fund and carry out research and public education on Iraq and neighbouring countries. BISI’s academic coverage includes anthropology, archaeology, history, geography, language and other fields in the arts, humanities and social sciences, from the earliest times until the present.
In lieu of a proper post—coming soon—here is me last night at Imam Ali's shrine in Nejef, with my new friends Dr Ebtisam (manager of the IT centre at U.Kufa) to the left and Dr Siham (linguistics lecturer) to the right. The photo was taken by Dr Ali, archaeologist and civil engineer, who gave me a fascinating tour of the shrine.
So yes, I am really here, and really having an amazing time. Proper posts will follow soon!
While I'm whiling away the hours until my connection to Nejef, I thought I'd make the most of Istanbul airport's cheapo wifi—€1 flat rate!—and mains power to write a quick report of a brilliant but sobering conference organised by BISI's near neighbour Chatham House held on 19 March, called Iraq: Ten Years On.
There are copious videos, audio recordings and transcripts on the Chatham House website so I'll limit myself to reviewing a few personal highlights. The first, most obviously, is that CH kindly gave BISI co-sponsor status in exchange for some advice on the programme. Our logo was bottom centre on all the big screens, much to our administrator Joan MacIver's delight.
Simon Collis, HM Ambassador to Iraq (and formerly to Syria) gave an excellent opening keynote, reminding us that the decade's retrospective should not be about hand-wringing or reliving old grudges against the UK/US politicians then in power: Iraq has moved on and so should we.
Indeed, common threads running through the day were optimism about Iraq's basic economic indicators and potential for future growth, intertwined with frustration at political intransigence, corruption and the endemic victimhood that fuels continued sectarianism. This last idea from the excellent Fanar Haddad in the best panel of day, on Iraq's political systems, chaired by recent BISI grantee Nussaibah Younis. Zaid Al-Ali on the Iraqi constitution and Haydar al-Khoei on Shia religious authority (confirming my positive impressions in Kerbala last October) were also very impressive.
The final panel of the day featured the incomparable Rosemary Hollis (far left), reflecting on the extent to which the Iraq war ten years ago should inform western government's responses to the current Syria crisis. Hollis also gave an impressively robust response to another panellist, Jeff Macris (far right—how apposite), who characterised the Gulf region as "endemically anarchic". Much to the audience's surprise, he blamed the region's current problems on the UK's withdrawal from the Trucial States in 1971, hinted that democracy was not a good fit for "the world's oldest societies" (as if they were still all Early Bronze Age city states) and urged the necessity of a (western) superpower to maintain order. Sadly I had to leave before the end of the question session but I sensed that Macris's neo-neoconservatism was not the majority view, thank goodness. CH's Jane Kinninmont (centre left) was chairing with an admirably tactful neutrality.
Last but not least, heartfelt thanks to Claire Spencer, head of CH's Middle East and North Africa Programme, and all her staff for putting on such a thought-provoking day and for making BISI a part of it.
(I'm reading China Miéville's The City and the City at the moment; can you tell?)
So, a post about two intertwined Nimruds, the ancient Assyrian city of the early first millennium BC and the modern archaeological site in northern Iraq, and about a couple of imminent BISI-sponsored events concerning the two.
(Photos are from my trip to Iraq in March 2001, and show the Tigris river at nearby Assur on a rainy day; and the Nimrud ziggurat being climbed by a particularly vigorous group of assorted Assyriologists. I stayed at the bottom.)
First up, at 6pm on Thursday 28 February the redoubtable Dr Joan Oates, FBA will be recalling dig life at and around Nimrud in the 1950s with, amongst others, Sir Max Mallowan (at that time Director of the British School of Archaeology, as was) and his wife Agatha Christie.
The lecture is called "An Archaeologist's View of Northern Iraq in the 1950s" and will be held at The British Academy in central London. Free places can be reserved on the BISI website. Be warned: if you don't book ahead, you may not be able to get in, as there are a limited number of seats available. Jolly reception afterwards too!
Second, on Saturday 27 April my new AHRC-funded research project on Nimrud will be hosting a BISI study day at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. "Nimrud, from Mound to Museum: Making Knowledge from Archaeological Objects" will seek some answers to the questions, How do archaeological artefacts find their way into gallery cases and museum websites? How do objects found in the ground get transformed into specimens for scientific and historical study? We'll be bringing together a range of academic experts who have been involved in this process, to give their personal stories of making knowledge from objects excavated from the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud.
Speakers confirmed so far include Joan Oates on excavating Nimrud, back in the day; Dr Julian Reade (University of Copenhagen) on re-interpreting old excavations; British Museum conservators Denise Ling and Kathleen Swales on how artefacts from the site are managed in the museum; and Dr Paul Collins of the Ashmolean on how objects are displayed and interpreted for the public.
There's a small charge for this event, to cover catering costs: £5 for BISI members; £10 for the rest of the world. Bookings open any day now on the BISI website.
On Wednesday I ventured into the freezing fog for a visit to the Iraqi Embassy in London, to discuss co-operation with a group of official visitors from Baghdad. The meeting had been arranged by the Embassy rather hastily last week, and we weren't quite sure what to expect, or what would be expected of us. But miraculously I had the day free, and Lauren was also able to persuade Edward Chaplin and John Curtis to attend, so at least I knew we'd got a crack team assembled who could deal with whatever came our way.
Edward and I emerged from the tube at South Ken into glorious icy sunshine, which picked out the slate blue stripes of the Natural History Museum to gorgeous effect. After the zero-visibility white-out train journey from Cambridge this was an auspicious start to the morning, and my confidence grew further when I realised that we would be perfectly on time, despite the inevitable weather-induced travel delays (and the potential effect of the helicopter crash that morning).
Even better, the Baghdad delegation turned out to be led by the delightful and indomitable Dr Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA) and a long-standing friend to BISI. I had seen his name on the delegates list, of course, but it soon became clear that he was the driving force behind our meeting (as behind so many good ventures). He is now also attached to the Prime Minister's Office, which gives him a great deal of authority and scope for initiative.
l-r: Lauren, Dr Saad, Edward, Dr Ibtisad, me, Mr Mohammed, John, and Chargé d'Affaires Dr Muhieddin. Note the chic gold sofas. No Ferrero Rocher this time though, just tea and very nice biscuits which we were too polite to eat.
Accompanying him were Mr Mohammed Jabber of the Ministry of Justice and Dr Ibtisam Ali of the General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers. I had not met her before but she had clearly done her homework on us and, we discovered, had already been working to help BISI-sponsored Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP) get their excavation permit to start digging next month. So naturally I was predisposed to like her too, and indeed she turned out to be highly engaged and helpful. As far as I can tell, she and Saad seem to have roles rather like ministerial special advisors, which enables them to subvert the often slow and obstructive civil service bureaucracy.
As the public relations officer made the formal introductions—Miss Lauren Mulvee, one of BISI's administrators; Mr Edward Chaplin, BISI Council Member and former ambassador to Iraq; Dr John Curtis, President of BISI and former Keeper of Middle East collections at the British Museum—it was very disconcerting to hear, "And Dr Eleanor, of course, who needs no introduction at all!" Apparently I am particularly famous for donning an abaya to go to Kerbala last autumn, as well as for my Babylonian school activities in the Iraqi Cultural Centre!
I had prepared a short briefing on BISI's work, highlighting current and planned activities in Iraq that we (have) sponsor(ed)—URAP; Sound of Iraq, which has trained sound technicians for INLA to create a national sound archive, the Al-Kafeel Holy Shrines museum project, etc.—but I'm not sure I told them anything they didn't know already. Saad and Ibtisad were particularly keen to know if there was anything in particular they could help us with in Baghdad. As it happens, there are a few new initiatives we're trying to get off the ground at the moment, so I could give some very concrete responses. (I won't say more here just yet... you'll have to wait and see!) I'm also hoping to be back in Iraq for a week or so in early April, so there will also be good opportunities to follow up these discussions in Baghdad.
Saad's current projects are many, various, and impressive. Apart from Sound of Iraq, he has initiated an Iraqi national film archive; plans to open European-language sections of INLA; is systematically acquiring originals or copies of Iraq-related archives from other countries, especially the UK and US; has got government funding for a permanent archive and exhibition commemorating the atrocities of the dictatorship, so that victims' voices can be heard as well as the victimisers'; and is writing a book on the history of censorship in Iraq. All that and he's coming back to London in September to speak at our Gertrude Bell conference.
So now I need to get a move on and finalise my April travel arrangements. The pretext is another conference—this time on quality assurance in higher education, oh the excitement!—but it will be in beautiful Najaf and this time—out of term-time—I'll be able to stay on for a little longer than my last visit.
More happy news! Jon Taylor, co-editor (with Michael Seymour) of BISI's journal Iraq, tells me that Volume 74 (2012) is now being shipped from the printers. Congratulations, Jon and Michael, on your first joint volume!
The bumper table of contents is as follows:
Unfortunately BISI does not yet have an online publication deal for Iraq (though we're working on it! news soon, I hope). Fortunately, though, it's now easier than ever to join BISI online and to get a copy of the journal that way.
Back issues are available online through JSTOR (with a five year moving wall).
If you're interested in submitting an article to be considered for publication in Iraq, please read the instructions for authors on how to prepare your manuscript and how the peer-review process works. If your work is (part-)funded by a UK research council, rest assured that Iraq is committed to complying with Research Councils UK's new Policy on Open Access to Research Outputs--again, more news soon.
In Kurdistan for BISI last May, I met local archaeologist Saber Ahmed Saber, who was helping colleagues from UCL choose a new site or two for excavation. Here he is with Rob Carter of UCL Qatar, identifying potsherds near a site called Gurga Chiya.
We encouraged him to apply for a BISI Visiting Scholarship to the UK, and I'm delighted to report that he arrived at Heathrow just over a week ago. Saber will be spending most of his two-month stay working with Mark Altaweel at UCL, writing up his excavations in the Sulaimaniyah region of southern Kurdistan.
But the first weekend after his arrival happened to be the date of this year's BANEA conference, which also happened to be here in Cambridge. So Mark and Lamia brought him to Friday's session: here we all are on the river after lunch (l-r: me, Mark, Harriet Crawford, Saber, Lamia Al-Gailani).
It was a delight to welcome him here, and I hope he and Mark have a very productive few months together. It's also my pleasure to thank everyone who's made the visit happen: BISI people Lauren Mulvee and Joan MacIver; Lamia Al-Gailani, Edward Chaplin, and Harriet Crawford; Barbara Porter and her staff at ACOR who hosted Saber in Amman while waiting for his visa; the staff of the British Embassies in Baghdad and Amman; Kate Carter, Saber's host in London; all at UCL; Augusta MacMahon and Nicholas Postgate at BANEA Cambridge; and, just as importantly, Kamal Rashid of the Sulaimaniyah Antiquities Directorate for granting Saber leave to take up the fellowship.
The next application deadline for BISI Visiting Scholarships is on 1 February: details are on the super-gorgeous new BISI website. If you know of an Iraqi cultural heritage professional or academic who would benefit from a period of collaborative research leave in the UK, with the option of a further month in Germany funded by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, do encourage them to apply.
A whole year in the planning and making, the new BISI website went live this afternoon.
If you're still using the old web address at the British Academy, the new site won't propagate there until the New Year. So delete that from your bookmarks (I won't link to it here) and add http://www.bisi.ac.uk/ right away!.
Large numbers of people contributed to making this happen, but I particularly want to thank Helen Taylor and Khalid Almaini of Cambridge Web Studios who patiently and painstakingly turned our initially rather incohate ideas into reality. BISI's fabulous administrators, Joan MacIver and (especially) Lauren Mulvee, put huge amounts of time and effort into it throughout the year. BISI volunteer Ewan Rodgers generously made a significant contribution in the final months too. Thank you all, and congratulations, Ewan, on your new job!
I hope you'll find the new site much nicer to look at than the old one (which I slung together as a supposedly temporary replacement for something even clunkier, way back in early 2008). It's got everything the old one had (though not always in the same place) plus a lot more content and functionality.
Most excitingly, you can now book places at BISI events online—reserve seats for free events, buy tickets for costed ones—as well as join the Institute, renew your membership, and make a donation. You can pay securely with PayPal, wherever you are the world.
We're also starting to use the website to distribute free PDFs of our books. Only a few are up so far, mostly more recent ones for which PDFs were made as part of the production process, but we're planning to digitise all our back-catalogue in due course.
You can also use it to access BISI's Facebook page and Twitter account, as well as this blog. (And now you know why I chose this particular design and colour-scheme when I started this blog back in the summer. We match!)
This has got my Christmas off to a fabulous start. Wherever you are, and however you celebrate the middle of winter/summer, I wish you a joyful and relaxing time of it too.
