Dr Govert van Driel

Govert van Driel (1937-2002) was lecturer in Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at the University of Leiden, and participated in several excavations in Turkey and Syria before continuing the excavations on Jebel Aruda. His main research interest lay in the social and economic history of Mesopotamia, in particular of the Neo-Babylonian period, as documented in contemporary archives. He contributed regularly to the Bulletin of the Sumerian Agriculture Group with articles on agriculture, irrigation and husbandry that combined written sources with archaeological evidence. His study of Mesopotamian prebends, taxation and land use ‘Elusive Silver: in search of a role for a market in an agrarian environment’ was published posthumously in 2002.