Dr Peter Andrews (Chatham 55)

“On 8 November 2022, I was presented with the Sir Richard Burton Memorial Medal by the Royal Asiatic Society, which is inscribed at my request to both me and my late wife.”

The Royal Asiatic Society wrote: “Peter Andrews, with the constant assistance of his wife Mügül, has taken the study of the Eurasian tent to a totally new level. The material culture of the Eurasian nomad is not as well researched as it should be and in that culture, the home of the nomad, the portable tent is of central importance. Peter Andrews has devoted most of his life to clarifying its origins, its historical evolution and its endless varieties across Eurasia. He has endured severe physical and financial privation, which would have destroyed a lesser man. He has spared no pains to ‘get it right’, making himself proficient in one language after another and going to the ends of the earth to study tents first-hand, often in the most difficult environments such as Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and some of the worst deserts in the world. He has the heart and stomach of a true explorer and his publications will remain classics – not just now but when the way of life that they document has suffered irreparable change and in some cases has totally vanished.”