An Afternoon With Dr Paul Collins

Paul Collins is Keeper of Middle East at the British Museum. He was previously Professor of Ancient Middle East and Jaleh Hearn Curator at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, and held a Hugh Price Fellowship at Jesus College.  His research interests include visual representation in Mesopotamia, its relationship to the written record, and the transmission and adoption of artistic forms across the Middle East.  He is currently Chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

His lectures will be on:

1. The Soldier and the Exorcist - the story of a cylinder seal.

In 1922 a cylinder seal was lent to the Ashmolean Museum by a British army officer who had acquired it in Baghdad. This talk explores the modern history of the seal and an interpretation of its carved imagery, which connects it to so-called Lamashtu plaques used to exorcise Mesopotamian demons in the first millennium BC. 

2. Babylon - House of the Great Gods.

Perhaps the most famous site in Mesopotamia (if not the ancient world), Babylon conjures up images of debauchery and a tower built to reach heaven. This talk explores the archaeology and history of the real place, from its 3rd millennium BC origins through its highs and lows across more than two thousand years.