St John Simpson

St John Simpson is a senior curator and archaeologist in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. He specialises in the archaeological evidence and material culture of the Sasanian empire, has published extensively on this subject, excavated Sasanian sites in Iraq and Central Asia, and analysed Sasanian finds from the Persian Gulf to Iran and the Caucasus. At the Museum he has curated three major special exhibitions: Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia (2017/18), Afghanistan...See more

St John Simpson is a senior curator and archaeologist in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. He specialises in the archaeological evidence and material culture of the Sasanian empire, has published extensively on this subject, excavated Sasanian sites in Iraq and Central Asia, and analysed Sasanian finds from the Persian Gulf to Iran and the Caucasus. At the Museum he has curated three major special exhibitions: Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia (2017/18), Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (2011), and Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen (2002), as well as three successive galleries for ancient Iran, the most recent being the Rahim Irvani Gallery which opened in 2007. His previous books with Archaeopress include Masters of the Steppe (2020), In Context. The Reade Festschrift (2020), Softstone (2018), and Looted, Recovered, Returned: Antiquities from Afghanistan (2014). See less