GRANTS AND BOOK PRIZES AWARDED IN 2024

The Iran Heritage Foundation’s grants and prizes are awarded on a competitive basis to scholars and researchers whose work contributes to the study and preservation of Iran’s rich cultural heritage. We are delighted to celebrate the achievements of last year’s recipients, whose achievements continue to make a lasting impact in the field.

These are the grants awarded in 2024:

Professor Roger Matthews received a grant for his project, Dating the Iranian Neolithic Transition. This project involved radiocarbon dating of five charred plant samples from the Caspian shore site of Komishani Tepe and the Fars region sites of Toll-e Sangi and Tappeh Poustchi.

Dr Richard McClary received a grant for his project, Digitisation and Cataloguing of Professor Robert Hillenbrand’s Photo Archive. This project involves digitising a significant archive of approximately 75,000 photographs of historic buildings worldwide, with a particular focus on monuments in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. An added benefit of the project is the removal of legal restrictions, making the archive freely accessible to anyone interested.

Lorane Prevost was awarded a grant for her project, The Transmission of the Classical Radif Outside Iran: Social and Musical Hierarchies. This project focuses on the transmission of Iranian classical music outside Iran, with particular emphasis on radio, a collection of musical modes and melodic segments, the significance of which for the diaspora has rarely been studied.

Dr Richard McClary received a grant for his project Digitisation & cataloguing the Jennifer Scarce Photo Archive. The project involves digitising and cataloguing an important photo archive that includes the best-known record of Qajar tiles and is the key element of an archive that covers monuments across the wider Iranian world not addressed by earlier generations of scholars.

Dr Nahid Massoumeh Assemi was awarded a grant for her project Research into the largest collection of Qajar photographs in private hand. The research proposes to look at the largest collection of Qajar photographs outside Iran; a collection that provides an unrivalled tool for investigation of the diverse elements making up the 19th-century Iran.

Dr Federica Giagante received a grant for her project Towards a Reconstruction of a Safavid Astrolabe Workshop. This includes travel cost to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, to research on its collection of Safavid astrolabes.

Dr Amin Hashemi was awarded a grant for the project Towards Musical Creativity, Migration and Integration of Iranian Musicians in the UK. This project aims to organize a symposium including academic round tables with musical performances, showcasing discussion on music. The symposium will include five sessions of performances by five Iranian musicians.

Dr Dagmar Anne Riedel received a grant for her project Early British Collectors and the Manuscript Trade in India and Iran before the 1820s: The Persian Collections of the Ouseley Brothers. This project involves the Persian manuscripts of Sir William Ouseley (1767–1842) and his brother Sir Gore Ouseley, bt (1770–1844) explores how after 1757 the increased British demand for literature about Mughal India changed the international manuscript trade.

These are the book prizes awarded in 2024:

Dr Nahid Massoumeh Assemi was awarded a prize for her book Piety and Politics in Qajar Iran: The Takkiyya Mu‘avin al-Mulk in Kermanshah.

Dr Rustam Shukurov was awarded a prize for his book Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650-1461.