Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (born 11 April 1949, Chatham, Kent)[1] is a British professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London,[2] where he is the Research Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the Department of the Languages and Cultures of Near and Middle East. Sims-Williams is a scholar who specializes in Central Asian history, particularly the study of Sogdian and Bactrian languages. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Iranian Studies journal.
Sims-Williams was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at the same time as his twin brother, the Celtic Studies scholar Patrick Sims-Williams; he graduated with BA, MA (Cantab.) and PhD degrees.[3] Sims-Williams has recently worked on a dedicatory Sogdian inscription, dated to the 1st–3rd centuries CE, that was discovered at Kultobe in Kazakhstan. It alludes to military operations of the principal towns of Sogdiana against the nomads in the north. The inscription tends to confirm the confederational organization of the Kangju state and its various allies that was known previously from the Chinese texts.[4]
- ^ Exegisti monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims-Williams, Wiesbaden 2009, p. XIII. (Internet Archive).
- ^ "Achaemenid inscription names uncle of Darius in Old Persian for first time". Tehran Times. 13 April 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2009.
- ^ "SIMS-WILLIAMS, Prof. Nicholas John". Who's Who. Vol. 2024 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Nicholas Sims-Williams and Franz Grenet, The Sogdian Inscriptions of Kultobe, Shygys (Almaty), 2006, pp. 95–111.