Richard D. Barnett

Richard D. Barnett (d. 1986) devoted his entire career to the British Museum, with the exception of the war years, when he served as a Royal Air Force intelligence officer in the Near East. He came to the museum in 1932 to fill the post of Assistant Keeper in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities and in 1955 became the first Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, a position he held until his retirement in 1974.  His studies of the Nimrud ivories culminated in a landmark work, A Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories in the British Museum (1957; rev. ed. 1975).  Barnett’s strong interest in Biblical history led him to serve for many years on committees of the Palestine Exploration Fund and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.