Prof. Michał Gawlikowski with the Prof. Jan Zachwatowicz Award

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Michał Gawlikowski has received the prestigious Prof. Jan Zachwatowicz Award for his achievements in the research and conservation of heritage sites. The award is presented by the Polish Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the General Monument Conservator.

Prof. Michał Gawlikowski has been affiliated with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw (PCMA) and the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw for many years. He was Director of the PCMA in 1991–2005 and Director of the Institute of Archaeology in 1989–1991. A student of Prof. Kazimierz Michałowski, he belongs among the most distinguished Polish archaeologists. At the turn of the 1980s, he directed salvage excavations in Iraq, including on the Bijan Island as part of the international Haditha (Qadisiya) Dam Salvage Project. At the invitation of the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities & Museums, for many years, he headed the archaeological-conservation mission working in the famous mithraeum in Hawarte. The majority of his professional life has, however, been devoted to Palmyra, where he made many significant discoveries as the director of the mission (since 1973). His most recent archaeological project took him to Saudi Arabia, to the site of Aynuna on the Red Sea coast. Prof. Gawlikowski is also a prominent lecturer and has supervised several dozen MA theses and over a dozen PhD dissertations. He has also written numerous professorial reviews. In addition to authoring many publications, he initiated and was a long-standing editor of the “Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean” journal, published since 1990, as well as editor-in-chief of the “Studia Palmyreńskie” journal (1966–2013).

In 2016, the Prof. Jan Zachwatowicz Award was presented to Dr. Wojciech Kołątaj, a long-standing employee of the PCMA Research Centre in Cairo.