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Paul Bergne collection

Call Number

AD.MC.077

Date

1973-1975, inclusive

Creator

Bergne, Paul, 1937-2007
Heard-Bey, Frauke, 1941-

Extent

0.4 Linear Feet in 1 archival box.

Language of Materials

English , Arabic .

Abstract

Photographs, notes, manuscript draft of texts, correspondence, and printed material, related to British diplomat Paul Bergne's interest in Arabian dhows, including their history, construction, and contemporary role in fishing and commercial trade. Materials were created or collected by Bergne during his time living in Abu Dhabi in the early 1970s.

Biographical note

Alexander Paul A'Court Bergne was born on 9 January 1937, the son of Bill Bergne and Diana Holman Hunt, the latter of whom was an art critic and the great-granddaughter of the painter William Holman Hunt. Bergne was raised in the countryside of Northumberland, and attended Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained degrees in economics, archaeology, and anthropology. He later obtained an MA in Persian language and literature from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London.

Following his initial university studies, he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with postings that ranged from his initial assignment in Vienna, to Iran, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Athens and Hong Kong. He studied Arabic for a year and a half at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies in Lebanon, becoming proficient in that language, and studied several others as well, including Farsi, Chinese, Azeri, and other Turkic languages.

While in Abu Dhabi, living near the sea led him to learn how to sail, and as a result, he took an avid interest in the history of seafaring in the region and dhows. In addition to studying the history of dhows, he visited shipyards around the United Arab Emirates to observe traditional methods and tools that were still used at that time in the construction of dhows. As a linguist and fluent speaker of Arabic, he was also interested in the language and terminology specific to seafaring and boat construction in the Gulf region.

In addition to the history and culture of dhows, Bergne and his family developed an interest in the archaeology of the region. On a family camping trip near Buraimi, they discovered a pre-historic flint workshop on the side of a ridge, and subsequently donated the artifacts they found there to the Al Ain National Museum.

Bergne later served in the Cabinet Office in London from 1988 to 1992, advising the British government on policy in Central Asia during the breakup of the Soviet Union. After his retirement, he was recalled in 1993 to serve as the first Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Uzbekistan (1993-1995) and Tajikistan (1994-1995). Following that, he returned to pursue a career as a scholar, being a senior research scholar at St. Antony's College, Oxford, and the founding director of St. Antony's Centre for the Caspian and Central Asia. He was called back into diplomatic service in 2001, when Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed him to serve as an envoy to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, as that group sought to overthrow the Taliban-led government of that country.

Paul Bergne died of cancer on 5 April 2007. He was survived by his wife, Suzanne, and their two children.

[Source: The Guardian, Obituary: Paul Bergne, 17 April 2007, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/apr/17/guardianobituaries.obituaries; accessed on 5 July 2021; Wikipedia article, "Paul Bergne," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bergne; accessed on 5 July 2021, and additional information supplied by Suzanne Bergne]

Arrangement

The contents of the collection are divided into two series, "Photographs" and "Research," and arranged in largely alphabetic order by folder title, or in chronological order.

Content Description

The Paul Bergne collection consists of photographs, notes, manuscript draft of texts, correspondence, and printed material, related to British diplomat Paul Bergne's interest in Arabian dhows, including their history, construction, and contemporary role in fishing and commercial trade. Materials were created or collected by Bergne during his time living in Abu Dhabi in the early 1970s.

The collection includes a series of photographs taken by Bergne between February and May, 1974, of the construction of dhows in various locations around the United Arab Emirates, as well as a smaller number of images of dhows from Qatar. Among the images is a numbered series of 50 prints, which were meant to correspond to plates in a projected published work, and which document the construction of a "boom" type of dhow at a shipyard in Dubai between February and May, 1974. Other files contain images of shipyards around the region, and smaller groupings depicting the construction of other types of dhows (jalboot, shu'i) at locations in Abu Dhabi, Umm al-Qawain, Ajman, and Ras al Khaimah.

The remaining materials, grouped under the series "Research Materials," include publications and offprints of scholarly articles collected by Bergne during his research, concerning fisheries, nautical terms in Gulf Arabic, and the history of dhows in the region. Also included in this series are a list of dhows that arrived in the harbor of Ras al Khaimah during the year 1973, including information about their owners, places of origin, and ports from which they had arrived. One file also contains manuscript drafts of writings by Bergne, about the shipyards he had visited and his outline of a history of dhows in the region.

Conditions governing access

The collection is open for use in the Reading Room of the Archives and Special Collections department of the NYU Abu Dhabi Library.

Conditions governing use

This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). In addition, any photographs used from this collection should be appropriately credited to Paul Bergne.

Preferred citation

Identification of item, date; folder number or item identifier; Paul Bergne collection; MC.077; Archives and Special Collections, New York University Abu Dhabi Library.

Immediate source of acquisition

Gift of Suzanne Bergne, 2021.

Custodial history

The materials in this collection were transferred from Suzanne Bergne, in the years following her husband's death, to Frauke Heard-Bey, who subsequently transferred them to the NYU Abu Dhabi Library in early 2021.

Collection processed by

Brad Bauer

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 18:13:17 +0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: English

Processing information

Processed by Brad Bauer, April 2021.

Repository

NYU Abu Dhabi, Archives and Special Collections
NYU Abu Dhabi
New York University Abu Dhabi, C-2
P.O. 129188
Abu Dhabi
nyuad-asc-group@nyu.edu