Country: Egypt
Collection Type: Research center
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints Slides (positives)
Website: http://www.ifao.egnet.net
The French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo is one of the major French research centers abroad and falls under the aegis of the Ministry of Education (National, Higher and Research).
The institute’s mission is to study the successive civilizations of Egypt from prehistory until the modern era. The disciplines involved are archaeology, history, and language studies. The excavation sites of the IFAO cover all eras (prehistory, Pharaonic Egypt, antiquity, the Islamic period) and they are situated throughout Egypt (Nile valley, Delta, oases, Eastern and Western Desert, Sinai and the Red Sea).
The library includes roughly 90,000 volumes specialized in the fields of Egyptology, papyrology, Classical, Byzantine, Coptic and Arabic studies and a archive holding the photographic and scientific records of all the Institute’s excavations since 1971, as well as certain from before that year, plus a map library of some 3000 items belonging to 80 different series.
The photograph collection includes more than 300,000 photographs, consisting of 20,000 glass-plates, 100,000 silver negatives, 50,000 slides, some albums and contact sheets.
The library is accessible to the public but the photographic collection is not accessible.

Contact Details: Name: Philippe Chevrant (Head librarian) and Nadine Cherpion (Archival conservator)
Email: bibliotheque@ifao.egnet.net, archives@ifao.egnet.net , ncherpion@ifao.egnet.net
Address: 37, rue al-Cheikh Ali Youssef B.P. 11562 Qasr al-Aïny 11441 Le Caire – Égypte
Tel: + 20 22 79 71 600

Country: Tunisia
Collection Type: Cultural organisation State agency/ Ministry
Collection Size: 10,000-50,000
Period: 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints
Website: http://www.inp.rnrt.tn/

The National Heritage Institute (INP) is a public administrative institution under the Ministry of Culture, responsible for establishing the inventory and study of cultural heritage, archeological, historical, civilizational and artistic artifacts.
The photograph library was created in 1984 and holds around 110,000 photographs, in the form of film-based negatives, positives, some 11,000 glass plates, Black & White and color images. The INP includes photograph collections from various museums in Tunisia such as Musée de Carthage and Musée de Bardo. Moreover, it also includes the Tunis Medina archives, the collection of the White Fathers missionaries, and images from historical and archeological sites in Tunisia. The archive has grown with contributions from INP photographers, such as Benassir, Khalifa, Rida or Selmi, and photographs have been mostly acquired on the occasion of exhibitions. The collection is available through an electronic database and accessible upon request for researchers, historians, archeologists, and INP employees.

Contact Details: Name: Mohamed Ali Ben Hassine, Collection representative
Email: malika.dali@yahoo.fr
Address: Rue Sophonisbe, Carthage Hannibal – 2016 Carthage (Tunis)
Tel: +216 22 946 326

Country: Iran
Collection Type: Research center
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1860-1900 1960-1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints
Website: http://iichs.org/index_en.asp

The Institute for Cultural Research and Studies was founded in 1986 with a mandate to maintain, organize and catalogue valuable historical documents acquired during and after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 1996, it was replaced by the Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies (IICHS), a professional research center devoted to the study of contemporary Iranian history. Its objective is to undertake various research projects regarding social, political, economic and cultural aspects of post-eighteenth-century Iran, using its collection of primary sources.

The institute’s archive consists of public and private collections, memoirs of prominent individuals in various languages, historical slides, films and official decorations belonging to the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties as well as tens of thousands of photographs of Iranian and foreign dignitaries, events and buildings.

IICHS has a rich library, which, in addition to many old memoirs, travel accounts, journals and reports in various languages, holds many old and valuable manuscripts and lithographs dating back to the fourteenth century. The Institute has expanded its international academic ties, allowing exchange of documents between various scholars in this field. It also organizes lectures and conferences, commissions translations of significant scholarly works, and publishes research books and a quarterly journal, Iranian Contemporary History (Tarikh-e-Moaser-e-Iran). Its publications include The Revolution in Khurasan, The Historical Events Relating to Baning the Veil, and Mudarris and the Parliament.

The collection is partially catalogued on a database and is made available to researchers.

Contact Details: Name: Zohreh Moradkhany
Email: zo2mo@yahoo.com
Address: P.O.box.19395-1975, Tehran, Iran
Tel: +98 21 2260403738

Country: Iraq
Collection Type: Public/ National Archive
Collection Size: 1,000-10,000
Period: 1860-1900 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Prints

The Iraq National Library Archives aims to collect, store, preserve and exhibit historical materials from Iraq. The photographic collection varies in size, type, format, and theme and mainly depicts political, social, sports and military events. The collection is made available to academics, students and researchers.

Contact Details:
Name: Nahid Fadhil Mahdai
Email: nahid.mahdi@rocketmail.com

Country: Jordan
Collection Type: Press
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Prints
Website: http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public/Main_english.aspx?lang=2&site_id=1

Established in 1969 as an independent body linked to the Ministry of Information, Petra News is the largest and oldest press agency in Jordan and the official news agency for the Kingdom. The photograph archive holds around 250,000 photographs, consisting of 50,000 images taken between the 1960s and the 1990s which have been digitized, and 20,000 digital photos taken since 1998. Items include film-based negatives, positives, Black and White and color prints in addition to digital files.

Petra’s more recent picture archive started in 1995, with photographs taken by staff photojournalists, and the archive continues to expand as images are added daily from journalistic news production.

The archive is used by most Jordanian newspapers, including Al-Ghad, Al-Rai, Al-Dustour, and Jordan Times. The collection is accessible for researchers by appointment.

Contact Details:
Name: Fayez Abadi, Director General; Majid Abu Khaled, Managing Editor photography and design; Rasamieh El Kobba, Director of Department
Email: director@petra.gov.jo; fabbadi2010@yahoo.com
Address: Jamal Abdel-Nasser Circle, Amman, Jordan / 6845 Code 11118, Amman, Jordan
Tel: +962 65609700

Country: Iran
Collection Type: Private collection
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1860-1900 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints Slides (positives)
Website: http://www.datkam.com

The Kamran Najafzadeh private collection was initiated in 1996 to preserve photographs and documents from Iran, while making them accessible for researchers and students. The collection holds more than 150,000 images dating from the 1860s to the present day and covers Qajar Era photography, as well as images of Berlin, and Arab and European photographers. The collection consists of glass-plate negatives and positives, film-based negatives, slides, black and white and color prints, in addition to particular techniques such as cyanotypes. Other materials include postcards, photography books, scanned images from magazines and newspapers, and photography-related objects.

The collection has been featured in publications and various exhibitions in Iran. it is accessible for students and researchers and is partly available on the website and Facebook page.

Contact Details:
Name: Kamran Najafzadeh
Email: datkam@yahoo.com ; info@datkam.com
Address: No: 4, Saba Alley, Lomomba Street, Satarkhan Street, Tehran, Iran
Tel: +98 912 3848019

Country: Bahrain
Collection Type: Foundation or Association Private collection
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Prints
Website: http://www.ksdibahrain.com

In the late 1950s, the Bahrain Petroleum Company provided training to two Bahraini photographers in the United Kingdom, Khalifa Shaheen and Abdullah Mohamed al-Khan. In 1971, both individuals founded Studio Falcon Cinefoto in Bahrain, a studio for photography and cinema. They produced photographs for almost 50 years together until they split in 2006.

This led them to creating two competing studios. Khalifa Shaheen and his son created Khalifa Shaheen Digital Images while Abdullah Mohammed al-Khan created Bahrain House of Photography. Al- Khan took the original photographs and the negatives while Khalifa Shaheen took digital copies and the right to use them. Both photographers claim having a million pictures.

Khalifa Shaheen Digital Images (KSDi) collection covers all the fields of Bahrain life with a special attention paid to technological innovations and transports such as airports, aircrafts and related inaugurations since the 1930s. They sell digital print and provide editorial services, as well as digitization services to private institutions. They have digitized the American Mission Hospital’s photographic archive.

Contact Details:
Name: Nader Khalifa Shaheen
Email: nader@ksdibahrain.com
Address: PO. Box 31425, Manama, Bahrain
Tel: +973 17593993

Country: Iraq
Collection Type: Private collection
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints

Researcher, Photographer and Collector Kifah Al Amin aims for the preservation of photographs related to Iraq and the establishment of an Iraqi Photography Museum.
He started collecting in the 1980s. His photograph collection ranges from the 1895 to today and is still actively growing. Noted Iraqi photographers in his collection include Halim al Khattat, Emri Selim and Muhi Aref. He has published several volumes on the photographic history of Baghdad containing around 3000 images, from his personal collection.

Contact Details:
Name: Kifah al Amin
Email: k.amin@gmx.de
Tel: +964 (0)770-4425 400