We regret to report the recent passing of Charles Burney, who was 94 years old. Charles spent his entire professional career at the University of Manchester where he taught and inspired generations of students, encouraging and supporting many of them into lifelong careers in the archaeology of the Near and Middle East. The first of his many fieldwork experiences were in Libya in 1951 with Charles McBurney and at Saqqara in Egypt in 1953. He also excavated for three seasons, 1954-56, at Jericho with Kathleen Kenyon. During those same years, while scholar at the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, he conducted wide-ranging regional surveys across much of northern and eastern Anatolia, partly on horse-back, partly by bicycle (!). In later years he devoted his attentions to Iran, firstly at the Early Bronze Age site of Yanik Tepe near Tabriz and latterly at the major site of Haftavan Tepe. With Seton Lloyd he co-directed a single season of excavations at the Urartian site of Kayalidere in 1965. His last fieldwork was at the village site of Khirbet Wadi Khatkhun in the Eski-Mosul Dam rescue project in northern Iraq in the early 1980s.
Charles drew his inspiration from the peoples of the mountain regions of the Middle East, epitomised in his 1971 book with David Laing The Peoples of the Hills: Ancient Ararat and Caucasus, in which Charles coined the now familiar term ‘Early Trans-Caucasian culture’. His 1977 overview book From Village to Empire: An Introduction to Near Eastern Archaeology still bears reading today, with its bold sweeping vistas across the major regions, periods, and issues of the Near Eastern past. Charles was loyal supporter of the BIAA over many years and served on the council of management. He was founder of the British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology (BANEA), and a major participant in all its annual conferences from 1987 until very recently. He will be sorely missed by legions of former students, colleagues, and friends. He is survived by his wide Brigit.
Roger Matthews 3/12/2024