Lecture Series – Miguel John Versluys (5/30/2018)

Persianism in Commagene: The Mnemohistory of the Achaemenid Empire in Hellenistic Eurasia

Miguel John Versluys (University of Leiden / Getty Villa Scholar)
The socio-political and cultural memory of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire played a very important role already in Antiquity. Miguel John Versluys has proposed to call this phenomenon, that is, the impact of Achaemenid Persia on the antique world, Persianism. In his lecture, Versluys will elaborate on this concept (and its discontents) by discussing the famous late Hellenistic site of Nemrud Dağ in the kingdom of Commagene, which was bordered on the east by the Euphrates river.