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...

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)...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...