Roman Ghirshman

Ghirshman's team in Sialk in 1934: Sitting from R to L: Roman Ghirshman, Tania Ghirshman, and Dr. Contenau.

Roman Ghirshman (Russian: Роман Михайлович Гиршман, Roman Mikhailovich Girshman; October 3, 1895 – 5 September 1979) was a Russian-born French archeologist who specialized in ancient Iran.

A native of Kharkiv, Ghirshman moved to Paris in 1917 to study Archeology and Ancient Languages. He was mainly interested in the archeological ruins of Iran, specifically Teppe Gian, Teppe Sialk, Bagram in Afghanistan, Bishapur in Fars, and Susa.

In the 1930s, Girshman was the first to excavate Teppe Sialk. His studies on Chogha Zanbil have been printed in 4 volumes, and he also led excavation teams at Kharg Island, Iwan-i Karkheh, and the Parthian platforms in Masjed Soleiman, near Izeh, Khuzestan.

With 300 papers and 20 books published, Ghirshman was one of the most prolific and respected experts on ancient Iran. Some of his works on Susa have not even been published yet, but have served other archeologists such as Henri Gashe in subsequent follow-up studies in the 1960s and 70s in Iran.

Honors

• Charles Lang Freer Medal

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Roman Ghirshman, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 300+ works in 600+ publications in 12 languages and 6,000+ library holdings.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

• 1938, Fouilles de Sialk, prés de Kashan, 1933, 1934, 1937. Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris (in two volumes).
• 1954, Iran: from the earliest times to the Islamic conquest. Penguin books. (A French version was published in 1951 by Payot, Paris)
• 1970, Le Pazuzu et les fibules du Luristan. Impr. Catholique, Beirut.
• 1971, Persia, the immortal kingdom. (Coauthors: Minorsky, V.F., and Sanghvi, R., Greenwich, Conn., New York Graphic Society.
• 1976, L'Iran des origines à l'islam. - Nouv. éd. rev. et mise à jour. Nouv. éd. rev. et mise à jour., Paris.
• 1977, L'Iran et la migration des Indo-Aryens et des Iraniens. Leiden.
• 1979, Tombe princière de Ziwiyé et le début de l'art animalier scythe. Soc. Iranienne pour la Conservation du Patrimoine, Paris.