Events

Gunvor Lindström: The Denavar Satyrs as Time Travelers

Wu Xin: Imperial Foundations of the Silk Road

Yuhan Vevaina: Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

Carlo Cereti: The Rise of Persian

This talk explores the evolution of writing during the Sasanian and early Islamic periods, shedding light on the long-term process that led to Persian becoming the lingua franca in Western and Central Asia.

CANCELED: Robert Rollinger: The “Persian Wars”

Due to recent events on campus resulting in the cancellations of classes at UCLA today, Professor Robert Rollinger’s lecture has been canceled.

Hilmar Klinkott: Consolidation of Law, Legal Order, and the Question of Constitutionalizing Processes in the Achaemenid Empire

Christian Sahner: How Zoroastrians Argued with Muslims in the Early Islamic Period

This lecture will explore the early conflict between Zoroastrians and Muslims by examining the most important polemical treatise in the Zoroastrian tradition, the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār (“The Doubt-Dispelling Disquisition”).

Elspeth Dusinberre: The Collapse of Empire

This talk will highlight the huge changes that characterized Gordion’s transition from the Achaemenid to the Hellenistic periods.

Neville McFerrin: An Entangled Empire

In reliefs across Persepolis, the Achaemenid administrative center, depictions of mediated bodies offer insight into an imperial ideology that generates inclusion through categorical and material slippages.

Eve MacDonald: Telling Tales

Anahita Mittertrainer: Symbols of Royal Authority?

Anne Hunnell Chen: Dislodging Disciplinary Silos at Dura-Europos

Arash Zeini: The Birth of the Abestāg from the Spirit of Philology

Kianoosh Rezania: How Did the Ancient Iranians Coordinate Space?

This lecture explores evidence that suggests that the old Iranian absolute frame of reference was constituted by the sunrise and sunset points of the winter and summer solstices.

Céline Redard: Current Trends in Avestan Studies

This lecture discusses the major progress made in our understanding of the Avestan corpus/texts in the last years.

Eberhard Sauer: From the Gorgan Wall to the Alan Gates/Dariali

It was only in December 2005 that radiocarbon samples established beyond doubt a Sasanian-era construction date for the Gorgan Wall, the longest fort-lined barrier of the late antique world.

John W.I. Lee: Greek “Concubines” and Achaemenid Dynastic Politics

This lecture focuses on the two Ionian Greek women who accompanied Cyrus the Younger on his campaign against his older brother, King Artaxerxes II, in the Achaemenid civil war of 401 BC.

James Howard-Johnston: Official Sources and the Reconstruction of History

James Howard-Johnston’s The Last Great War of Antiquity aims to fill the gap in the history of warfare by piecing together the scattered and fragmentary evidence of the early 7th century to form a coherent story of the dramatic events surrounding the last Roman-Persian war.

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Almut Hintze

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Carlo G. Cereti

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Nikolaus Overtoom

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Jason Schlude

Pourdavoud Center/Amuzegar Lecture Series: Afshin Marashi

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Michael Jackson Bonner

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Henry Colburn

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Gil Stein

Amuzegar Lecture Series: Robert Steele

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Everett Wheeler

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Antigoni Zournatzi

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Pollet Samvelian

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Jason Schlude

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Mehrnoush Soroush

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Stefan Hauser

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Margaret Root

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Robert Rollinger

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Matthew Canepa

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Mark Garrison

Lectures with Miguel John Versluys and Albert de Jong

Diophante’s Kandys: Faceted Relations between Persia and Classical Athens

Persian and Greek Participation in the making of China’s First Empire

Between Graven Images and Zoroastrian Texts: How to Study Ancient Iranian Religious Iconography?

Freed from Hostageship: Iranian Perspectives on the Arsacids of Rome

Great King / King of Kings. Survival and Transformation of a Persian Title in the Hellenistic Period, c. 330–30 BCE: From the Achaemenids to the Parthians

The Achaemenid King and his Governors: Identity – Imitation – Identification

Rashīd al-Dīn in the Eye of the Beholder: Proposing a Holistic Approach to Reception History

Greater Glory: Darius I and Divinity in Achaemenid Royal Ideology

The Anatomy of Loyalty and Patterns of Patronage in the Religio-political Culture of Sixteenth Century Iran

Excavations at Pasargadae: The First Imperial City of the Achaemenids