We were saddened to hear that Bill Martin, a longtime Friend of the Trust, passed away on on 17 February 2024 at the age of 96. Bill and and his wife, Sandra Mason, have been regular attendees of Trust events for many years. They also acted as Friends Coordinators for us in a voluntary capacity for ten years until 2018, organising Friends events and building support for the Trust’s work. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was a particular passion of Bill’s. He was an avid collector of different editions and …
Duplicates Books for Sale – updated list for May 2024
From time to time the Ancient India & Iran Trust advertises duplicate books and periodicals for sale. Many of these are rare and out of print. We view this as a useful way of helping researchers and also of creating revenue. We have no dedicated income for purchasing current publications so the proceeds from book sales make a direct contribution towards keeping our collections up to date. The latest list for May 2024 (nearly 1000 titles) includes many duplicates from the collections of Mary Boyce (1920-2006), Professor of Iranian Studies …
The Ashokan Pillar
By James Cormick The Ashokan Pillar is up and running again. Well, not exactly running, but reconstructed and in a different place: further forward than before and easier to see and circumambulate. It was made for us in 1996, in memory of Sir Harold Bailey, one of our founding trustees, who had died earlier that year, by Professor Ulf Hegewald of the University of Aachen in Germany. He is now retired, but during his career as a teacher of design he also established a reputation as a creator of red …
LONGEVITY
by James Cormick ‘It must be something in the air’, people often say when remarking upon someone’s surprising longevity. While that is true of the Trust’s house in Brooklands Avenue, which is situated in an oasis of green south of the centre of Cambridge, it is certainly not the whole truth. I am convinced that books, particularly old books, add to the environmental mix that prolongs a person’s life. How else can we explain the fact that four people closely associated with Trust have approached, reached, or exceeded 100 years …
Books about Afghanistan by Nicholas Barrington
Those of you who have been reading the articles by our trustee Sir Nicholas Barrington on his collection of books about the 19th-century history of Afghanistan, the ‘Great Game’ and northern India may like to know that a seventh article is now available. Read the eighth article here Read the seventh article here Read the sixth article here Read the fifth article here Read the fourth article here Read the third article here The first and second articles can be read in Indiran 14 and 15, respectively.