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 September 2026 (over 1200 titles) includes many duplicates from the collections of Mary Boyce (1920-2006), Ralph Pinder-Wilson (1919-2008), Josef …
Recent additions to the Library
Several of our most recent additions to the AIIT Library were generously donated. All of these books are now catalogued and available to view in the Library: The founder of Manichaeism : rethinking the Life of Mani: The Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, 30 May – 2 June 2016 / Iain Gardner. Cambridge: CUP, 2020 (gift of the publisher). Shelfmark: AIIT.a.2687 A handbook of Khotanese / Ronald E. Emmerick [deceased] ; completed and edited by Mauro Maggi, John S. Sheldon, and …
Joe Cribb Honoured
Our trustee Joe Cribb was honoured at an event at the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) on 18 April. The event was a celebration of Joe’s 75th birthday and the publication produced in recognition of his contribution to numismatics: Look at the Coins! Papers in Honour of Joe Cribb on his 75th Birthday. This title was chosen because of the frequency with which Joe has reminded fellow researchers to look at the coins themselves rather than relying on secondary sources. Joe’s colleagues Helen Wang, Robert Bracey and Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis all …
Digging through the Trust’s Allchin Archive proves rewarding for visiting fellow
At the beginning of March, the Trust welcomed NTICVA (Nehru Trust for the Indian Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum) Visiting Fellowhip recipient Professor Arjun Rao. Professor Rao is from the Department of History and Archaeology at Central University, Karnataka, and is currently working on several areas of prehistoric archaeological research, but wanted to visit AIIT during his fellowship in the UK to look at the research papers and notes related to Raymond Allchin’s PhD thesis on prehistoric sites in South India. The trust archive holds a copy of …
Feasting on the Shahnameh
Amongst the manuscripts we hold at the Trust is Abolqasem Ferdawsi’s tenth-century epic Persian poem, the Shahnameh, copied in Samarkand in 1604. When I first applied for the Administrator post, this felt like an added reason to work here, as my name derives from that of Manizheh, the daughter of King Afrasyab and the heroine of the love story ‘Bizhan and Manizheh’ told in the Shahnameh. That this story was housed here reinforced the personal affinity I have always felt with the Trust. However, while I was aware of my …