Mesopotamia is a birthplace of ancient urban civilizations and has laid a foundation for them by bringing about a diverse range of inventions and innovations. In the core Mesopotamian cities, there is coexistence as well as disparity while most people contrived ways to avoid clashes of values. Inquiries into a city, therefore, does not only explore the origin of cities and civilizations, but also could hopefully contribute to solutions of varied problems of the city-centered modern society and provide suggestions for its future.

For fuller inquiries into Mesopotamian urban civilizations, it is essential to conduct long-term archaeological researches on the field. Until recently had Iraq been considered as a hardly accessible country. These several years, however, the security situation of its southern area has been dramatically improved and excavation teams from quite a few countries have demonstrably resumed their activities there. A great opportunity has now presented itself for the Japanese teams to respond to local requests by extending supports for education and researches, as well as to make a substantial contribution by elucidating the Mesopotamian urban civilization.

In the mind of a large population in Japan, on the other hand, modern Iraq and ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of the civilization, are neither geographically nor historically connected with each other. Although the level of the Japanese people’s interests in Mesopotamia remains high, they tend to perceive Iraq, a country with continuous conflicts, just as a dangerous place and see as if it were a world totally different from their own. Such discrepancy in recognition originates from the lack of effective history education. To solve this problem, one should diffuse, in Japan’s field of education, knowledge on geographical and historical connection of the Mesopotamian civilization and the modern state of Iraq.

Over a quarter of a century, Seminar of West Asian Archaeology, a voluntary group lead by the president of the present NPO, has had meetings for discussion on the archaeology of Mesopotamia and its surrounding areas. Based on such an achievement, the new organization seeks better forms and contents of history education for the younger generation and makes every effort to spread its fruits, in continuous cooperation with the group. It also promotes grass-root cultural exchanges and also conduct joint archaeological researches, with the Iraqi side. It thus intends to make contributions to the resolution of modern problems.

To implement the above-mentioned visions, the newly designed organization will endeavor to become an irreplaceable nonprofit and citizen-centered one by acquiring understanding and support over fields and positions and by accomplishing the collaboration with domestic and international institutions. We have hereby established the Japanese-Iraqi Institute for Archaeological Education of Mesopotamia (JIAEM), a nonprofit organization aiming at advancement of current information on archaeological and related study results on Mesopotamia and its neighboring regions, and of education for the next generations as well as of academic and cultural exchanges between Iraq and Japan.

July 21, 2018

Tatsundo Koizumi, PhD

President

Japanese-Iraqi Institute for Archaeological Education of Mesopotamia

(Nonprofit organization; Corporate Number 5021005011439)