David Brian Stronach OBE FSA (10 June 1931 – 27 June 2020) was a British archaeologist of ancient Iran and Iraq who became an expert on the city of Pasargadae and an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Born in June 1931, Stronach was the son of Ian David Stronach FRCSE and his wife Marjorie Jessie Duncan Minto, and was educated at Gordonstoun School and St John's College, Cambridge, from which he graduated Master of Arts in 1958.
His scholarship earned him several honours and awards, including the invitation to deliver endowed lectures at Harvard and Columbia.
[2] He became Professor of Near Eastern Studies in the Graduate Division, University of California, Berkeley, in 1981[4] and retired in 2004.
[3] Stronach's daughter Tami played the role of "The Childlike Empress" in the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story.