TEHRAN – Prolific Iranian anthropologist, researcher, and translator Asghar Karimi died at a Tehran hospital on Monday. He was 81.

He conducted arrays of field research in different parts of Iran from 1959 to 1975. He collaborated with many Iranian and French and American anthropologists and ethnographers such as William Irons, Christian Bromberger, Jean - Pierre Digard, Tereza Batista in different corners of Iran.

Karimi is considered the designer of new museums in the country. Over the past couple of years, he collaborated with the Islamic Encyclopedia Foundation and in the groups of geography and culture of the Iranian people of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia Center. He was also an associate member of the Iran branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

Born 1940 in Zanjan, he went to France to pursue higher studies after receiving his diploma from Marvi High School in Tehran in 1972. In 1975, he received a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Marseille, and in 1978, he received a master's degree in anthropology from the same university.

He immediately entered the doctoral program in this field, but left his studies unfinished and returned to Iran. His unfinished doctoral dissertation entitled "On the system of land ownership in the Bakhtiari tribe based on existing old records".

Karimi left behind a rich cultural legacy including over 30 books, 50 articles and dozens of research projects and scientific reports. He also translated many archaeological reports written by Roman Ghirshman and some other Western archaeologists.

AFM