David Bivar

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Adrian David Hugh Bivar F.S.A., is a British scholar, historian and archaeologist. Bivar, is Professor Emeritus of Iranian and Zoroastrian Studies at at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the university of London. His professional areas of interest are Iranian philology, and the history of Iran, Central Asia and Buddhism.

[edit] Life & Eucation

Prof. David Bivar was born at Constantia, Kurseong, India, on 25 October 1926, the only son of Hugh Godfrey Stuart Bivar of the Indian Civil Service.

He was first educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and then at Cheltenham College gaining a First Class degree in Classical studies specialising in Greek, Latin and ancient Greek and Roman history.

[edit] Career

He entered military service, served in the British army, in the Gloucester Regiment and in India Command. one of his notable attachments being aide-de-camp to Sir Olaf Caroe, the last British governor of the North West Frontier Province. This was a very formative period in which he developed his lifelong interest in the art, archaeology and coinage of Gandhara. (He was later to assist Sir Olaf in his volume on the Pathans; Sir Olaf credited his enthusiasm and expert scholarship for the distinctive configuration of the pre-Islamic section of the book.) He returned to Oxford in 1948 to study for his Doctorate of Philosophy, He was subsequently appointed Research Lecturer in Ancient History at Christ Church College, Oxford, and presented his doctorate thesis on the history and archaeology of the Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian periods.

In the post-war period, he also served as a diplomat in Syria, Iran and the Lebanon, where he acquired his excellent working knowledge of Arabic and Persian at Beirut and Shiraz's Pahlavi university, most useful assets for his subsequent career. It was also the period when he met Lesley Margaret Muspratt, whom he married in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, in 1954 charming and devoted wife who accompanies Bivar on many of his travels.

In 1956 he was appointed Museum Curator in the Nigerian Antiquities Service, being mainly concerned with the study and conservation of Arabic manuscripts and Islamic armour, weapons and buildings. Then in 1960, after three years' absence, he returned to London to take up the post of Lecturer in Iranian Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London. This was the beginning of a distinguished career in SOAS, where he progressed to Reader and Professor in the subject area on which he had set his heart. It enabled BivaR to pay repeated visits to Iran and Afghanistan for fieldwork and excavations. He worked with David Stronach at Tappeh Nush-e Jan in 1962; with Geza Fehervari in 1964 at Tamisha and, from 1971, at Ghubayra; and investigated the site of Qumis with Stronach. During these years, Bivar played a major role in the affairs of the Royal Numismatic Society, the British Institute of Persian Studies, the Society for Afghan Studies, the Society for South Asian Studies and the Corpus of Iranian Inscriptions, but above all in the Royal Asiatic Society, where he frequently served on Council, becoming successively Director, Editor and President.

He is able to use original Greek, Latin, Arabic and Persian texts and apply the results of his extensive numismatic and epigraphical experience to the more general sphere of Iranian art and archaeology. As one would expect, he has been a regular contributor to the major international meetings and conferences concerned with his subject.

He speaks fluent Greek, Latin, Russian, German, Arabic, Persian, French and Pashto, and has extensive knowledge of Avestan, Old Persian, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, and other ancient Iranian languages and dialects, both extinct and current.

[edit] References

• D. W. MacDowall, A. S. Bennell. "Iranian Studies in honour of A. D. H. Bivar", ed. Carol Altman Bromberg, Bulletin of Asia Institute, vol. 7 (1993),pp.1-3 ISSN: 0890-4464.
• E. J. Brill, “Repertoires Vol. I., Bio-bibliographies de 134 Savants”, Acta Iranica, Leiden (1979), p.56, ISBN: 9004-05941-5