We recently welcomed Mr Ali Obaid Shalgham, the Head of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and Deputy Minister of Culture, and a delegation from the University of Al-Qadisiyah, to Durham.
Mr Shalgham and Professor Rajwan Al-Mayali, Dean of the Faculty of Archaeology at the University of Al-Qadisiyah, met with our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Karen O’Brien, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global), Professor Claire O’Malley. The delegation took part in a ‘World Heritage in Iraq’ workshop, organised by our Archaeology Department; had a tour of the department’s laboratories and visited the Durham Castle and Cathedral World Heritage Site as well as the Arbeia Roman Fort at South Shields.
In 2023, Durham University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Al-Qadisiyah University aimed at providing capacity building in heritage protection. As part of this collaboration, our Archaeology Department has provided training to Al-Qadisiyah staff and students in state-of-the art survey and laboratory techniques.
Archaeologists from Durham University have also begun a new collaboration with the University of Al-Qadisiyah and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq focused on the Darb Zubaydah, one of the most important historical Hajj pilgrimage routes between Kufa, in southern Iraq, and Mecca. Remote sensing has revealed previously unidentified stations on the route and has resulted in an unexpected discovery. Together, the team has pinpointed the location of the Battle of al-Qadisiyah using historical texts and satellite images. The battle, which took place in 637/8 AD, was a crucial victory by the Arab Muslims in the expansion of Islam beyond Arabia. Until now its precise location was not clear.
Our world-leading Archaeology Department has a long and proud history of working with institutions across the Middle East to preserve cultural heritage sites, provide capacity-building, and undertake joint research activities. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, we achieved three 4* impact case studies, with two of them focusing on collaborative and co-designed cultural heritage protection and interventions. In the MENA region, Training in Action worked with regional heritage protection agencies in Libya and Tunisia to safeguard vulnerable heritage through capacity building and documentation.
Over the last 10 years, the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Project, a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Leicester and Oxford, has been engaged in using satellite imagery and ground survey to monitor cultural heritage sites in the MENA region. We do this in collaboration with regional partners, as a response to a growing number of threats such as agricultural expansion, urban development, conflict, and natural disasters. In June 2024 the EAMENA project received a further £2.2 million from the Arcadia Fund to continue its work a further three years. In addition, we were awarded funding from the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund to continue to deliver capacity-building activities in the MENA Region through to the end of 2024.
Discover more about our engagement with the University of Al-Qadisiyah
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