David Brian Stronach (10 June 1931 – 27 June 2020) was a British

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

of ancient Iran and Iraq. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Stronach was an expert on the city of Pasargadae. He was educated at

Gordonstoun Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is located ...

and St John's College, Cambridge, from which he obtained a Master of Arts in 1958. In 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 earned him several honours and awards, including the invitation to deliver endowed lectures at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...

and

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

. He was also the recipient of the 2004

Archaeological Institute of America The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America's oldest society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and AIA has established re ...

(AIA) Gold Medal for "Distinguished Archaeological Achievement". During his time in Iran, he met Ruth Vaadia (1937–2017), an Israeli archaeologist who was also working in Iran, and married her in 1966. They have two daughters, Keren and

Tami Tami or TAMI may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tami (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with either the given name or nickname * Mark Tami (born 1962), British politician and Member of Parliament * Pierluigi Tami ...

. The family left at the time of the

1979 Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

. He became a professor at Berkeley in 1981 and retired in 2004. Stronach's daughter Tami played the role of "The Childlike Empress" in the 1984 film '' The NeverEnding Story''.

References

External links

Faculty website (archived)
1931 births 2020 deaths 20th-century archaeologists 21st-century archaeologists Scottish archaeologists Iranologists British expatriates in Iran University of California, Berkeley faculty Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Officers of the Order of the British Empire {{UK-archaeologist-stub