Upcoming Event: An international workshop entitled “Who Owns the Past? Rethinking storytelling at the Ashmolean Museum” is taking place.

The Digital Cultural Heritage (#DCH) Research Center based at Sulaimani Polytechnic University is pleased to announce the 10th international workshop of the #DCH-NN ( Nahrein Network ) “Digital cultural heritage” Training Program. Titled “Who Owns the Past? Rethinking storytelling at the Ashmolean Museum”, the workshop is presented by Dr. Paul Collins, Curator for Ancient Near East at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

This workshop is of an interdisciplinary nature; therefore, all are welcome to register, especially those working in the fields of technology, museology, archeology, and humanities.

Date: Wednesday, 7/7/2021

Time: 8:00pm-9:30pm AST (Iraq Time)

Languages: English & Kurdish

Presented via: Zoom Online workshop

Please register via the following link:

Register Here

Organizers note:

• Online registration is required to obtain an electronic certificate of participation. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the meeting.
• Only Zoom attendees (with prior registration) who attend at least half of the workshop can obtain a certificate of attendance. We have upgraded our Zoom Webinar plan so that up to 500 participants can attend the webinar via Zoom.
• Due to some technical considerations, FB live viewers cannot get a certificate, even if they are registered).
• We issue electronic certificates of attendance in English based on participants’ registration information. So, please make sure to enter the correct English spelling of your name when registering.
• The workshop will be video recorded.

*The Nahrein Network, based at the University College London (UCL), is a collaborative international project between UCL, University of Oxford , Sulaimani Polytechnic University , and the University of Al-Qadisiyah. The Network is supported by an AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund grant from the UK government.

About the speaker:

Dr Paul Collins has been Curator for Ancient Near East at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, for the past 10 years. Previously he was as a curator in the Middle East Department at the British Museum (2006-2011) where he was responsible for the collections from Ancient Assyria before being appointed Lead Curator for the Museum’s consultancy project to develop a new national museum in the UAE. Before this Paul was Assistant Curator in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (2001-2006).  He trained as a history teacher and spent many years in both museum and adult continuing education. Since 2017 he has been voluntary Chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

Paul’s research focuses on visual representation in Mesopotamia, its relationship to the written record, and the transmission and adoption of artistic forms across the Near East. Other areas of interest include the role of museum displays in shaping disciplinary knowledge and the history of collecting. His publications include Mountains and Lowlands: Ancient Iran and Mesopotamia (Ashmolean Museum, 2016) and The Sumerians (Reaktion Books, 2021).