ICONEA (The International Conference of Near Eastern Archaeomusicology) was founded in 2007 by Richard Dumbrill and Irving Finkel. However, the idea sprouted twenty years earlier in 1987. The conference is mainly focused on the musicology of ancient civilisations having used the cuneiform script for the transmission of their musical knowledge, in the Ancient Near and Middle East. However, ICONEA is keen to publish papers of comparative archaeomusicology such as with Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, etc. The first conference was co-organised with the department of the Middle East of the British Museum where it was held in December 2008. The second conference was hosted at and co-organised with the Department of Musicology of the Université de la Sorbonne, in Paris in November 2009. In 2010, ICONEA became a research group of the Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Study of the University of London and was held at Senate House in December of the same year. ICONEA provides M. and Ph.D. students with guidance and co-supervision for their theses and will facilitate their access to collections and specialised workshops of all aspects of archaeomusicological sciences. Proceedings of the conferences are published annually or bi-annually, depending on selected contributions.
The Academic Board of ICONEA includes leading authorities in archaeomusicology, Assyriology as well as authorities in neighbouring cultures. The Board maintains a website (www.iconea.org) and a database (www.icobase.com) of the Instrumentarium of the Ancient Middle, Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. For information, email to: rdumbrill@iconea.org