TEHRAN -- Ezzatollah Negahban, the father of modern Iranian archaeology died on Monday, February 2. He was 87.

He was suffering from both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and died in the United States where he was living the last years of his life, his son Bahman told the Persian service of CHN.
Negahban who was the head of Iran’s archaeology team in 1968, totally evolved this course and that’s why he is called the father of modern Iranian archaeology.
Negahban was born in 1921 in Ahvaz. He finished school in his hometown and studied archaeology at the University of Tehran.
He later continued his studies at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. In these yeas, he conducted research works on the buff color earthenware in the Khuzestan region and collected a lot of information which finally were compiled in his thesis.
He made great efforts to get the required budget to renovate the Mohammad Abad Khoreh Caravansary near Qazvin which was later turned into a permanent workshop where the archeologists and students can carry out their research works.
He was also one of the defenders of arranging archeological activities inside the country and was strongly fighting against antique smugglers. He has also collected the most amount of gold in his archaeological excavations.
His research works and articles are published on books and have always been a good source for other archeologists.