4. A King from the Trenches

Fingerprints Episode 4
Curator Paul Collins takes us on a journey with a 3000 year old king uncovered by an Indian soldier digging a trench in World War I, and explore what he has to tell us about the formation of Iraq as a nation state. Find a transcript of this episode here
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• Read more about the sculpture here or see an image here

Speakers in this episode:

• Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean Museum
• Dr Paul Collins, Curator of the Ancient Middle East, Ashmolean Museum
• Santanu Das, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture, University of Oxford
• Dr Mehiyar Kathem, Nahrein Network, UCL and Oxford, Researcher on cultural heritage in contemporary Iraq

About the Fingerprints podcast
Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain’s oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean’s curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.
Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean’s website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from 21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.
Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

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