Mary Boyce

Nora Elisabeth Mary Boyce (2 August 1920, Darjeeling - 4 April 2006) was a British scholar of Iranian languages, and an authority on Zoroastrianism. The Royal Asiatic Society's annual Boyce Prize for outstanding contributions to the study of religion is named after her. She was born in Darjeeling where her parents were vacationing to escape the heat of the plains during the summer. Her father, William H. Boyce, was a Judge at the Calcutta high-court, then an institution of the British imperial government. Her mother Nora (née Gardiner) was a granddaughter of the historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Boyce was educated at Wimbledon High School and then Cheltenham Ladies College. At the University of Cambridge, Newnham College, she studied...