Johanna Lhuillier: Looking for the Achaemenids
Abstract
Looking for the Achaemenids: Central Asian Cultural Identity and the Achaemenids in Central Asia
While archaeological studies of the Achaemenid presence in Central Asia have generally either focused on the scarcity of Achaemenid material markers, or looked for evidence of a major impact in profound landscape modifications, this lecture seeks to take a middle path. It proposes a re-examination of these modifications – and more broadly the sites attributed to the Achaemenids – based on material culture evidence. Data from recent excavations, in particular from Bactra and Cheshme-Shafa in Afghan Bactria, will be placed within the wider framework of the Central Asian satrapies.
About the Speaker
Johanna Lhuillier
National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Johanna Lhuillier is a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Archéorient Laboratory in Lyon. An archaeologist, her research focuses on Central Asian societies from the Bronze Age to the Achaemenid period, and she is particularly interested in the questions of interactions, mobility, and the relationships between human societies and their environment. She has more than twenty years of field experience in Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan, and since 2017 she has been leading the Franco-Uzbek Archaeological Mission in Protohistoric Bactria, through which she explores sites dating to the 2nd millennium BCE. She has also led several research projects, particularly on pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid ceramics, as well as on the Bactra Oasis, which contribute to her ongoing research on Achaemenid Central Asia. She is the author of two monographs, co-editor of two conference proceedings, and author of numerous articles.