Alastair Northedge is Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University de Paris 1. He has worked in Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and conducted projects at Amman in Jordan, and Ana in Iraq, in addition to Samarra. He is author of Studies on Roman and Islamic Amman, and joint author of Excavations at Ana, with Andrina Bamber and Michael Roaf.