The Asia Institute (1928–1979) was an American organization in support of research and interest in Persian art and archaeology; and starting in 1964 it was funded by the Pahlavi-era Iran.

[1][2] The Asia Foundation was founded in 1928 in New York City, as the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology.

The Asia Institute was founded by Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, who had organized in 1926 an exhibition and the First International Congress on Persian Art in Philadelphia.

[5] The aim of the institute was to promote research and interest in Persian art and archaeology through exhibitions, lectures, congresses and publications, and to assist in the excavation and conservation of monuments in Persia.

Due to close contacts with the royal family of Iran, Pope and his wife moved to Shiraz in 1966, where the Asia Institute was re-established as a part of Pahlavi University (now Shiraz University) and housed in the late-nineteenth-century Qajari mansion called the Qavam House (or Narenjestan).