Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (9.1997(1998))

Wladyslaw B. Kubiak
(1925-1997)

The 18th century English poet,
Alexander Pope, surveying the
hullaballoo of Hanoverian society,
opined "We die of nothing but
a rage to live". That this is apposite
of Prof. Kubiak is true only in that
an accident, hardly an intention,
occasioned his demise. That he was
avid to live is true for he was on his
way from his beloved country
home in Wery to Warsaw from
which he would take off for Egypt
a day later to take up his research on
the Islamic ceramics found at Kom
el-Dikka in his beloved Alexandria.
For this work he had been honoured
by a grant from the Max van Berchem Foundation in recognition of
his outstanding accomplishments in the field of Islamic
Archaeology. This field and the cognate ones of Islamic Art and
Architecture are the poorer today for the accident that eclipsed
a man and a scholar at the zenith of his career.
Wladyslaw Kubiak was born in Wi^zowna to Warsaw
in 1925. In the Jagiellonian University he pursued undergraduate
work in Oriental Studies, a splendid preparation for his future
career, one which included Classical languages and history which
scaffolded his particular interest in the lands of the eastern
Mediterranean. He received his M.A. from his alma mater in 1953
having submitted and defended a thesis on Ibn Fadlan’s geographic
work of the 10 century. Following a decade of study, field work

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