St John Simpson

St John Simpson is a senior curator in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. He has excavated extensively in the Middle East but it was his first experience of travelling across central Asia in 1991 which led him to co-direct nine seasons of excavations at ancient Merv, in present-day Turkmenistan (1992–2000), and develop extensive relations there and in Russia. He was the lead British Museum curator and co-editor of the catalogue for the BP exhibition Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia (2017/18). His previous exhibitions include Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (BM, 2011) and Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen (BM, 2002), and he also curated the Rahim Irvani Gallery for Ancient Iran at the British Museum (2007).