Parthian Silver and the Creation and Contestation of Aristocracies in Post-Hellenistic Iran
Abstract
This paper offers new insights into the political role of Parthian silver. It considers the role of these vessels in animating political competition among the Arsacids, Seleucids, and Greek dynasties of Bactria and Northern India. It approaches the problem through the longer Iranian tradition of feasting and redistribution and, more importantly, the contemporary geopolitical and competitive role of these objects. In addition, it will discuss a number of new technical observations and newly translated inscriptions, which shed additional light on their broader historical, political, and artistic contexts.
Citation
Canepa, Matthew P. "Parthian Silver and the Creation and Contestation of Aristocracies in Post-Hellenistic Iran." Pourdavoud Center: The World of Ancient Iran and the West (May 20, 2022).
About the Speaker
Matthew Canepa
University of California, Irvine
Matthew P. Canepa (PhD, University of Chicago) is Professor of Art History and Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on the intersection of art, ritual, and power in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia, and the wider Iranian world. Professor Canepa’s most recent book is entitled The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Landscape, Architecture, and the Built Environment (550 BCE – 642 CE) (University of California Press, 2018). It is a large-scale study of the transformation of Iranian cosmologies, landscapes, and architecture from the height of the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam.