Return to Kurdistan: revisiting the history and cultural identity of Iraqi Kurdistan and northern Iraq

Royal Society for Asian Affairs

25 September 2019

In a lecture for the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Richard Wilding explored the history and cultural identity of Iraqi Kurdistan and Northern Iraq, revealing its ancient Assyrian civilisation, religious and ethnic diversity, history of persecution and renewal, and the crisis caused by the emergence of DAESH (ISIS) since 2014.

Richard showed his contemporary photography alongside historical photographs taken by Anthony Kersting in 1944-46 and Gertrude Bell in 1909-11, the drawings and written accounts of 19th century archaeologists such as Austen Henry Layard and Jacobsen & Lloyd from the 1930s.