2016. David Oates (1927-2004) (sent to DNB, not yet published)

Oates, (Edward Ernest) David (Michael) (1927-2004), historian and archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of the Archaeology of Western Asia at the Institute of Archaeology in London, was born on 27 Feb 1927 at Stoke Climsland, Cornwall, the second son and third of three children of Thomas Oates, then headmaster of Stoke Climsland School, and of his wife Dora B. Strike; he was brother of [Sir] Thomas Oates, later governor of St Helena. In 1936 he went to Callington County School, and in 1939 won a scholarship to Oundle School, Northants, where he became Head Boy. He was tall, and at this time suffered a back injury, probably from rugby, that caused serious intermittent pain throughout his life. In 1944 he won a major scholarship in Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He began training as a naval officer, but illness prevented him from completing the course. At Cambridge, after a II.1 grade in Part I of the Classics tripos, he switched to Archaeology and Anthropology for his third year and graduated with a first-class degree in 1948. During 1949-51 he held a scholarship with the British School at Rome, then directed by J. B. Ward-Perkins, whom he viewed as his archaeological mentor. He surveyed farms of the first-sixth centuries AD in Libya, and observed fluctuations in settlement on the desert fringes of Roman Tripolitania; his identificaton of olive-oil presses exemplified a lifelong interest in technical detail. The Libyan work gained him in 1951 his first Fellowship at Trinity, where he became during 1957-65 Fellow and Lecturer in Archaeology and Ancient History. During 1952-4 he participated in projects in Libya and Turkey, including excavations in the palace of the Byzantine Emperors in Istanbul; his experience of its elaborate vaulting greatly assisted his later work on early vaults in Iraq. He returned to Istanbul in 1958 to work on the Kariye Jami. In 1954-5, chosen by R. E. M. Wheeler, Hon. Secretary of the British Academy, to complete A. Stein's study of sites on Rome's eastern frontier in Iraq, he concluded that many of them were not Roman, but he planned the Roman fortress at Balad Sinjar, and in 1956 the basilica of Qasr Serij. From 1955 onwards he joined the annual spring expeditions of M. E. L. Mallowan at the Assyrian city of Nimrud. By rigorous work he clarified the plan and stratigraphy of the Nabu Temple and Burnt Palace. He surveyed with great accuracy, and was a "master of mud-brick [the local building material which decays back to mud]... There is no better field worker in all Mesopotamia" (Mallowan, 279). At Nimrud, and elsewhere throughout his career, he often spent evenings on site with small pick in hand, checking architectural details and earning the respect and friendship of skilled workmen, with whom he spoke fluent Arabic. He was unusually well-informed on the culture and ceramics of many periods, and explored the countryside, examining mounds and ancient canals, with a freedom impossible after the 1958 revolution. In 1956 he married Dr Joan Louise Lines (who thereafter published as Joan Oates), a U.S. archaeologist specializing in ceramics and prehistory. In 1957 the two collaborated in excavating Hellenistic levels at Nimrud and Roman remains at Ain Sinu near Sinjar, including what can now be recognised as a Sasanian camp; this was pioneering research on little-known periods. They settled at 86 High Street, Barton, near Cambridge, and had three children (a boy and a girl, twins, in 1959, and a second daughter in 1961); Barton became their permanent home, which welcomed a diverse range of colleagues and students with whom he was always glad to discuss ideas and discoveries. During 1958-62 Mallowan retained overall control of the Nimrud excavations, but Oates was field director. The main operation was at Fort Shalmaneser, the royal arsenal, whose rich contents included many ivory carvings of great importance for Syrian and Phoenician cultures. He himself was mainly concerned with interpreting the architecture, He presented, in the journal Iraq, readable preliminary reports that were devoid of theoretical jargon but accompanied by elegant maps and drawings;. He did the same for his later excavations too, and followed Mallowan's example in encouraging specialists to publish the finds promptly, especially inscriptions which provided historical background. His book, Studies in the Ancient History of Northern Iraq (1968), brought together his research up to 1962, with a wealth of observations on landscape, water, settlement, communications and economy. It constituted a fresh approach to the understanding of regional history, and quickly sold out. During 1964-71, on behalf of the Briish School of Archaeology in Iraq of which he was now Joint Director, but with additional sponsorship, originally from the University Museum, Philadelphia, he excavated at Rimah closer to Sinjar, answering a range of questions about Assyria in the second millennium BC. He identified a mud-brick temple of c. 1800 BC with decorated facades, integral ziggurrat, and vaulted rooms; unique, and uniquely well preserved, it was a northern version of Babylonian architecture. Third-millennium structures underneath incorporated the earliest mud-brick vaults so far attested. Palace archives contemporary with the temple demonstrated the political and economic significance of the Sinjar region, and helped resolve existing geographical uncertainties. Later phases were represented by exceptional glass vessels of the Mitannian period, Middle Assyrian commercial archives, and a Neo-Assyrian stela describing the foundation of new settlements. In 1965 he initiated far-sighted but unsuccessful experiments in consolidating and conserving mud-brick through the injection of chemicals. During 1965-9 he resided with his family in Baghdad. He collaborated with Joan Oates in survey work near Mandali and in the excavation of Choga Mami, notable for the discovery of prehistoric irrigation channels. He established close relations, at the height of the Cold War, with Russians excavating at Yarim Tepe, and helped ensure the publication of their results in English. In 1969 he returned to London as Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1974. In 1975 he visited Syria, and decided that Brak, previously dug by Mallowan, still offered much for the study of periods before the second millennium BC. Raising funds from various sponsors, he excavated there during 1976-1993. In 1982 he took early retirement from the Institute, but continued fieldwork. David and Joan Oates together published The Rise of Civilisation (1976), a popular account of Mesopotamia down to 3000 BC, and from 1980 on Joan accompanied David to Brak and took over many responsibilities. She was joint author of nearly all his publications after 1987. Brak had more staff members and was more multidisciplinary in scope and better published than Nimrud and Rimah. The results were highly significant, solving problems left by Mallowan, establishing the Late Chalcolithic (Uruk) and Bronze Age cultural sequences for north-east Syria, and integrating them with sequences in Iraq. It emerged that by the fifth millennium BC Brak was already a city of 55 hectares. It developed extensive economic and cultural contacts, and was centre of the third-millennium state of Nagar. Oates' mud-brick expertise disentangled a major complex of public buildings dated to the Akkadian empire and a palace with documents important for Mitannian history. The first two volumes of a final report, Excavations at Tell Brak, with J. Oates and H. McDonald as co-authors, appeared in 1997 and 2001. Surveys of nearby Roman and Sasanian sites rounded off the earlier Sinjar work. From 1994 onwards there were other field directors at Brak while Oates retained overall control. In 1997 he received the Gertrude Bell Medal of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, of which he became President in 2000. From 1997 on he was Fellow of the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research at Cambridge. In 2001 he and Joan published Nimrud—An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed, which covered all excavations at the site. Oates, like his predecessors C. L. Woolley and Mallowan, brought to Middle Eastern archaeology the high standards and intellectual flexibility traditionally conferred by an education in the Classics. Conscious of his Cornish heritage and of the precarious balance between resources and subsistence in marginal areas, he was a pioneer in the landscape archaeology of Libya, Iraq and Syria. By his choice of sites and skilful excavation despite limited resources, he transformed the history of urbanism and monumental architecture in northern Mesopotamia. He promoted archaeology as one branch of history. He combined a patrician manner with humour and a great willingness to help that was reflected in the forty-one contributions from fourteen different countries including Iraq and Syria in a 2002 Festschrift volume (Al-Gailani Werr). This includes a list of his publications. He died in hospital in Cambridge on 22 March 2004. A funeral service was held in the chapel of Trinity College on 31 March 2004. By Julian Edgeworth Reade Sources J. Curtis, 'David Oates 1927-2004.' Proceedings of the British Academy 153 (2008), 324-47. M. E. L. Mallowan, Mallowan's Memoirs (1977), 277-9. L. Al-Gailani Werr et al. (editors), Of Pots and Plans. Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria presented to David Oates in Honour of his 75th Birthday (2002). Private information. Likenesses N. Kindersley. Photograph, repro. in Al-Gailani Werr (see above) , frontispiece. Anon. Photograph repro. in J. Curtis (see above), 324. Anon. Photograph repro. in A. McMahon and H. Crawford (editors), Preludes to Urbanism: the Late Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia (2015), frontispiece.