Juris Zarins

Juris Zarins

February 17, 1945 - July 8, 2023

Juris Zarins, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Missouri State University, died in his home in Corrales, New Mexico on July 8, 2023.

Juris Zarins was born February 17, 1945 to Latvian parents in a refugee camp in Bad Oldesloe, Germany. The Zarins family emigrated to the United States on September 30, 1950. They settled in Lincoln, Nebraska, along with a number of other Latvian families. Juris, who went as "George" in high school, embraced his Latvian name after he graduated from the University High School as valedictorian and class president. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa Sigma Gamma Epsilon and with high distinction from the University of Nebraska in 1967. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Juris earned his doctorate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1976. He was drafted to serve in Vietnam in 1969, an experience that forged an underlying imprint of fatalism that was continually affirmed through the decades as an archaeologist in Arabia.

A prominent Near East archaeologist, Juris conducted groundbreaking archaeological research in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Yemen. He was a brilliant scholar, teacher and mentor to numerous colleagues and students. He and his first wife Sandra lived in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1970s, where Juris served as an archaeological advisor and conducted the country's first systematic archaeological survey for the Ministry of Education. This work laid the groundwork for research that is only now resurging in the Kingdom. Juris was a world renowned Anthropology Professor at Missouri State University (MSU) in Springfield from 1978-2006.

After a project in the eastern desert of Egypt, in 1990 Juris was invited to direct a five-year project to search for the "Lost City of Ubar" in the Sultanate of Oman, which put that country on the map and was highlighted in an episode of PBS' Nova. The research included using satellite images to locate potential caravan routes. Juris was thrilled - he had another multi-year project that would help him piece together his previous work in Saudi Arabia with a broader swath of the Arabian Peninsula. He was building a corpus of unparalleled knowledge of the region. Whether it was really Ubar or not was not his primary concern - he had an opportunity to do a systematic archaeological survey and excavations in Dhofar, the southern region of Oman, where only Wendell Phillips had worked before him. Juris also used satellite imagery as part of his research on the Garden of Eden, which he argued was located at the head of the Persian Gulf where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers drain into the sea.

Another five-year project called Juris to Yemen, where he conducted yet another pioneering survey in the Mahra Governorate. After Juris retired from Missouri State in 2006, he returned to Oman to live there full-time with his second wife, Lynne, where they conducted excavations at Al-Baleed, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Salalah in the southern region of Dhofar. After several years in Qatar together, they returned to the United States in 2015 and settled in Corrales, New Mexico, where Juris continued to research and write until his untimely death.

In the midst of all of this international fieldwork, Juris had five amazing children. He loved and admired them all, and literally went to the ends of the earth to support them while pursuing his academic career. He was a consummate academic scholar, but was modest in his brilliance. He had an incredible zest for life and never met a stranger. He saw everyone and wanted to know their stories, always eager to share, listen and learn from others. He was friendly, kind, outgoing, brilliantly sarcastic, and had the most wonderful, boisterous laugh. Juris had an amazing grasp on history and incredible insight on how the past relates to the present.

In 2018, Juris and Lynne, along with a number of his children made a pilgrimage to Riga, Latvia, to meet this side of the family for the first time. Juris met many cousins and had the opportunity he thought he would never have to understand more about his father, Alberts, who never really acclimated to life in the United States. The Zarins family is now one with known distant relatives, which made Juris very happy, especially for his Latvian-American children.

Colleagues have remarked that they have lost a colleague, friend, mentor and a brilliant mind. An outpouring of condolences has been received from around the world, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Italy, Latvia, the UK, and Australia, with remembrances of how Juris touched their lives - students, colleagues, friends and family. His family is devastated by this loss, which was sudden and came way too soon; Juris had so much more to give to his grandchildren and to the archaeology of the Middle East.

Before Juris, no one else had done the work that was necessary to document so many sites of different time periods and to write and understand settlement patterns and how human occupation in the Arabian Peninsula through time was interconnected, particularly through trade. He proved Arabia was not a terra incognita. He was a consummate scholar and a brilliant mind, but he was approachable, down to earth and was always ready with the puns. Late in life Juris discovered the joy of cooking and gardening, began a love affair with his sweet dogs, and he and Lynne enjoyed the varied skies and wondrous sunsets in New Mexico.

Beloved son of Alberts Richards Zarins and Marija Valija Krigers, Juris is survived by his wife of sixteen years, Lynne Sue Newton, and his first wife of thirty six years, Sandra Jane (Bodie) Zarins; loving father to Aleksis (Amy Shelburn-Zarins) Zarins, Ingrid (Grant Matthews) Matthews, Stefans Zarins, Hans (Derrick Baum) Zarins, and Mikalis (Brigette Williams) Zarins; cherished grandfather of Zuben Shelburn, Eliza and Campbell Matthews, and Sofija Zarins; brother to Andrej Zarins and Ilze (Brian Ilgen) Ilgen; much loved uncle to Ingrid Hannan, Sacha (Hannan) St. George, and Elizabeth and Julian Zarins; doting dad to his dogs Shulgi and Shimti.

A memorial service will be held at The Old Glass Place on July 29, 2023 at 3 pm in Springfield, Missouri. The service is open to the public.

Three Holy Sacrifice of the Mass services will be offered for the repose of the soul of Juris Zarins, and will be celebrated by Tim Ilgen, Juris's sister Ilze Ilgen's brother-in-law, at Sacred Heart church in Lacey, Washington, on July 22 and 28, and August 5, 2023.

A scholarship for students studying aspects of the ancient Near East at Missouri State University will be established in Juris Zarins' name. In lieu of flowers, please consider contributing to this forthcoming effort.