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Behnam Abu Alsoof

Iraqi archaeologist, anthropologist, historian and writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ12199756 ↗
Source-derived summary

Behnam Nasser Nuaman Abu Alsoof (Arabic: بهنام ناصر نعمان أبو الصوف Behnam Abu alsouf) (born 1931 in Mosul, Iraq, died September 19, 2012) was an Iraqi Assyriologist, anthropologist, historian and writer.

He was born in Mosul to a Christian Syriac family. He completed his elementary and junior high in the city of Mosul. He earned a BA in Archaeology and Civilization from the University of Baghdad in 1955. He completed graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, England and received his doctorate degree in Archaeology and the nucleus of civilization and anthropology in the autumn of 1966. He worked on scientific rescue excavations on a wide basin in the Hamrin Dam (in Diyala Governorate), and Mosul Dam on the Tigris River in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. He revealed several archaeological sites in Iraq, including Tell es-Sawwan in Samarra in Saladin Governorate, which was from the Stone Age. He also led his work at the site of Qainj Agha near Erbil Castle to detect a wide range of archaeological evidence from the Uruk period. He lectured for many years at the roots of material civilization, archeology, and history in a number of Iraq's universities and the Institute of Arab history for Graduate Studies.

He wrote several books, including Pottery of Uruk Period: Origins and Spread (English language), The Shadow of the Ancient Valley (Arabic language), and Iraq: The Unity of the Earth, Civilization and Human (Arabic language).

Editorial summary

“Behnam Abu Alsoof” enters the record as iraqi archaeologist, anthropologist, historian and writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Behnam, Alsoof and Iraqi can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 2012, 1955, 1966—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1931-07-15. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Behnam, Alsoof and Iraqi.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Behnam Abu Alsoof” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Behnam, Alsoof and Iraqi provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12199756. VIAF identifies the subject as 60616669. The Library of Congress control number is n87933364. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 2012, 1955 and 1966.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Behnam Abu Alsoof”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Behnam Abu Alsoof primary sources, Behnam Abu Alsoof archive and Behnam research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Behnam Abu Alsoof” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.