David Brian Stronach (10 June 1931 – 27 June 2020) was a British archaeologist of ancient Iran and Iraq. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Stronach was an expert on the city of Pasargadae. He was educated at Gordonstoun and St John's College, Cambridge, from which he obtained a Master of Arts in 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s he was director of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran. In the 1990s, he excavated several parts of Nineveh. His scholarship earned him several honours and awards, including the invitation to deliver endowed lectures at Harvard and Columbia. He was also the recipient of the 2004 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Gold Medal for "Distinguished Archaeological Achievement". During his time in Iran, he met Ruth Vaadia (1937–2017), an Israeli archaeologist who was also working in Iran, and married her in 1966. They have two daughters, Keren and Tami. The family left at the time of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. He became a professor at Berkeley in 1981 and retired in 2004. Stronach's daughter Tami played the role of "The Childlike Empress" in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story. References External links Faculty website (archived) 1931 births 2020 deaths 20th-century archaeologists 21st-century archaeologists Scottish archaeologists Iranologists British expatriates in Iran University of California, Berkeley faculty People educated at Gordonstoun Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Officers of the Order of the British Empire