Eminent Iraqi historian passes away

Dr. Behnam Abu Al Soof Baghdad - Jaafar Al Nasrawy Cultural and literary circles mourned the death of Iraqi historian and archaeologist, Dr. Behnam Abu Al Soof in the Jordanian capital Amman. The renowend figure passed away at the age of 81 on Wednesday following a heart attack. The artist Diaa El Rouy, who was close to Abu Al Soof said in a press statement: "The Iraqi cultural, scientific and literary circles lost a prominent Iraqi scientific researcher. Abu Al Soof lived in Amman with a group of Iraqi scientists and intellectuals directly following the American occupation of Iraq. " Abu Al Soof was born in the city of Mosul in 1931 and completed his primary and secondary study there. In 1955, he obtained a BA in Archaeology and Civilisation in the Faculty of Arts, University of Baghdad. Moreover, he completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge in England and obtained a Ph.D. in Archaeology, the Nucleus of Civilisation and Anthropology in the fall of 1966. He worked for many years in excavation of archaeology in a number of Iraq sites at central and northern Iraq. He was a scientific supervisor on extensive excavations in the two dams in Hamrin in Diyala governorate and worked in Mosul on the Tigris River during the late seventies to the mid-eighties. Abu Al Soof was also the one who revealed a new civilisation from the Neolithic age in central Iraq at the mid of the sixties, which contributed to our knowledge of that period.