Dr Peter Magee is the director of Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi, which is slated to open in 2025. He was appointed as director in 2019 and also serves as head of Archaeology and Palaeontology in the Department of Culture and Tourism for Abu Dhabi.
The Department for Culture and Tourism seeks to place Abu Dhabi’s cultural heritage within a global context through the development of museums, temporary exhibitions and education programmes. It is also responsible for protecting, conserving and managing a variety of historical and archaeological locations, including the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Al Ain.
The Zayed National Museum is being built in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Cultural District and has been designed by architects Foster + Partners and represents a falcon’s wing. It will celebrate the rich heritage of the UAE, and stand as a memorial to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the country’s founder.
Magee has been promoting and researching the cultural heritage of the Arab and United Arab Emirates world for more than 25 years and has led archaeological field projects throughout the region.
Before this role, Magee was a professor of archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, where he served for two decades. He has also undertaken postdoctoral fellowships at Ghent University and Sydney University and was awarded a doctorate in archaeology.
Magee has received numerous accolades from universities and funding bodies around the world. In 2018 Magee was honoured with the Sheikh Mubarak bin Mohammed Prize for Services to UAE Archaeology.
He has authored more than 70 books and articles, with work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; The American Journal of Archaeology; Antiquity, Archiv für Orient-forschung; South Asian Studies; Current Anthropology, Paléorient: Revue pluridisciplinaire de prehistoire; and Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
He sits on many editorial boards for academic journals and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Arabia’s Board of Trustees. He was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2015.