Richard David Barnett CBE FBA (23 January 1909 – 29 July 1986) was the Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum.
He went to St Paul's School, London and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was a student of British School of Archaeology at Athens, 1930-32.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1962 and made a CBE in 1974.
Assistant Keeper, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum, 1932-9 and 1946–53
World War II: Admiralty 1939-40; Foreign Office, 1940–42; Intelligence Officer, RAF, 1942–46, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Turkey.
Deputy Keeper, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum, 1953-4
Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, 1955–74
Visiting Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1974–75
President, Jewish Historical Society of England, 1959–61
Chairman, Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 1968–86
Corresponding Member, Greek Archaeological Society
Ordinary Fellow, German Archaeological Institute, 1961
(ed) Treasures of a London Temple, 1951
(with Sir Leonard Woolley) British Museum Excavations at Carchemish, Vol. III, 1952
Catalogue of Nimrud Ivories in the British Museum, 1957, 2nd edn 1975
(trans.) The Jewish sect of Qumran and the Essenes (by J. Dupont-Sommer), 1954
Barnett, Richard David; Forman, Werner; Museum, British (1960), Assyrian palace reliefs and their influence on the sculptures of Babylonia and Persia, [London] Batchworth Press, OCLC 406410
Barnett, Richard David; Museum, British (1966), Illustrations of Old Testament history, London, British Museum, OCLC 1237822
(with M. Falkner) The Sculptures of Tiglath-pileser III, 1962, 2nd edn, 1970
Barnett, Richard David (1971), The Sephardi heritage; essays on the history and cultural contribution of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, New York, Ktav Pub. House, ISBN 978-0-87068-170-7
Barnett, Richard David; Jewish Museum (London, England) (1974), Catalogue of the permanent and loan collections of the Jewish Museum, London, Published for the Jewish Museum by Harvey Miller, ISBN 978-0-85602-010-0
Barnett, Richard David; Lorenzini, Amleto; Museum, British (1975), Assyrian sculpture in the British Museum, McClelland and Stewart, ISBN 978-0-7710-5345-0
Barnett, Richard David; Museum, British (1976), Sculptures from the north palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C.), British Museum Publications Ltd. for the Trustees of the British Museum, ISBN 978-0-7141-1046-2
Barnett, Richard David (1982), Ancient ivories in the Middle East, Qedem, 14; Publications of the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, OCLC 9032788
