Professor Nicholas Postgate FBA

Educated at the Link School, Malvern Link. then at West Downs School (Winchester) followed by Winchester College (1959-63). Went up to Trinity College Cambridge to read Classics but, influenced by David Oates, rapidly switched to Assyriology under J.V. Kinnier Wilson and J.M. Munn-Rankin. Graduated in 1967 (having spent one semester at Münster under W. von Soden) and took up an Assistant Lectureship in Akkadian at SOAS. Left SOAS after 4 years to take up a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, but almost immediately accepted the post of Assistant Director, British School of Archaeology in Iraq. This entailed residence for most of each year in Baghdad or in the field in Iraq. It gave the opportunity in 1973 to initiate an excavation at the Early Dynastic city of Abu Salabikh, south Iraq, a project which only came to an end in 1990 when the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. Returned to Cambridge in 1981 to take up a Lectureship in the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, converted to a chair in Assyriology (1994-2013). In the same year started excavation at the Bronze and Iron Age site of Kilise Tepe in Rough Cilicia. This lasted for 5 seasons, and was then resumed in 2007-2012.