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Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Eberhard Sauer

From the Gorgan Wall to the Alan Gates/Dariali: The Northern Defenses of the Sasanian Empire A lecture by Eberhard W. Sauer Based on collaborative research with Jebrael Nokandeh, Hamid Omrani Rekavandi, Lana Chologauri and Davit Naskidashvili   It was only in December 2005 that radiocarbon samples established beyond doubt a Sasanian-era construction date for the...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: 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. Based on her recent publication co-written with Jean Kellens, L’introduction à l’Avesta, Céline Redard introduces the new vision of the Avesta, leading to the new editions currently undertaken. The important ritual aspect...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Kianoosh Rezania

How Did the Ancient Iranians Coordinate Space? On the Old Iranian Absolute Frame of Reference For verbal expression and nonverbal cognitive processing of spatial relations between two objects, the speakers of a language use different frames of reference. (Psycho)linguistics classifies these into three main groups: intrinsic, relative, and absolute. This lecture aims to identify the...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Arash Zeini

The Birth of the Abestāg from the Spirit of Philology Scholars have often discussed Zoroastrianism as an ancient Iranian religion that reaches back thousands of years into the middle of the second millennium BCE. For a long time, the idea of monolithic continuity has dominated the scholarly discourse in the study of this religion. While...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Anne Hunnell Chen

314 Royce Hall 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA

Dislodging Disciplinary Silos at Dura-Europos Founded by the Seleucids, successively occupied by the Arsacids (Parthians) and Romans, and spectacularly conquered in a Sasanian siege, the borderland town of Dura-Europos (Syria) was home throughout its history to a fascinatingly diverse population. Since its initial excavation, the site has become justly famous thanks to unique circumstances of...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Anahita Mittertrainer

Symbols of Royal Authority?  Early Sasanian Cityscapes in Southwestern Iran   The early Sasanian royal city foundations of Gūr and Bīšāpūr and their respective surrounding areas were actively shaped by the new ruling dynasty with the goal of making an imprint of identity on the landscape and – especially in the initial phase – decisively...

Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series: Eve MacDonald

Telling Tales: Constructing Sasanian History in the Landscape The narrative stories and physical landscapes of the Sasanian Empire run parallel to each other, intersecting in areas where historical source and physical remnant of the material culture collide.  This is specifically relevant in the borderlands of the Sasanian’s vast realm, between the lands of Eran and...

Pourdavoud Lecture Series: Neville McFerrin

306 Royce Hall 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA

An Entangled Empire:  Dress, Reciprocal Construction, and the Experience of Kingship at Persepolis 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.  The crown of the king parallels the crenellations of the architecture that surround him even as...

Pourdavoud Lecture Series: Elspeth Dusinberre

306 Royce Hall 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA

The Collapse of Empire: Gordion’s Transition from the Achaemenid to the Hellenistic World This talk will highlight the huge changes that characterized Gordion’s transition from the Achaemenid to the Hellenistic periods. Gordion, ancient capital of Phrygia, was a large and thriving city of secondary importance during the period of the Achaemenid Persian empire (ca 550–333...

Pourdavoud Lecture Series: Christian Sahner

314 Royce Hall 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA

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”), written by the ninth/tenth century theologian and philosopher Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād. A sophisticated work of rationalist theology,...