This past week I attended the 14th Melammu Symposium at UCLA, which began with the sad news that Robert H. Dyson, Jr. has died at the age of 92. Perhaps best known as the excavator of Hasanlu in northwestern Iran from 1956 to 1977, Dyson was also a museum curator and administrator. While the manner and publication of the Hasanlu excavations have raised questions in recent years, it is doubtless thanks to Dyson’s tireless efforts that so much material from that site is known and available for study, and the University of Pennsylvania is one of the major centers for the study of Iranian art and archaeology. Indeed, his support for Iranian colleagues, such as Ezat Negahban, in the face of major political challenges marks him as one of the most important contributors to this field; his passing is accordingly a major loss.
Archaeologist, Art Historian, Sometime Curator, and Ocassional Classicist