The first keynote address from the Fourteenth Melammu Symposium, “Contextualizing Iranian Religions in the Ancient World,” is now available. In this video, recorded on February 19, 2020, Robert Rollinger (University of Innsbruck) presents “Entangled Worlds: Afro-Eurasian Networks in Achaemenid Times.”
Entangled Worlds: Afro-Eurasian Networks in Achaemenid Times
Recorded: February 19, 2020
Event: Contextualizing Iranian Religions in the Ancient World
by Robert Rollinger (University of Innsbruck)
Sources on transregional networks in Achaemenid times, which cover the entire range of the empire, and especially its borderlands, are very scarce and mainly secondary. This contribution aims to collect and reinterpret the available evidence on a comparative level. It intends to shed additional light on an empire that already established a world-system of its own, and where the Great King as well as the elites were well aware of the (supra-)regional dimensions of trade, income, and wealth.
About the Fourteenth Melammu Symposium
The Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World convened the 14th Melammu Symposium, “Contextualizing Iranian Religions in the Ancient World,” at UCLA on February 18-20, 2020. The international three-day symposium held at Royce Hall explored Iranian religions in light of ancient Near Eastern traditions and precedents. It hosted scholars whose work pertains to the interchange of ideas and practices between the ancient Near East, Egypt, the Classical and Hellenistic worlds, and ancient Iran. The overarching themes of the symposium encompassed: Elam, the Ancient Near East, and Persia; Ancient Egypt and Persia; the Divine in Achaemenid Material Culture; (Post-)Achaemenid Religious Practices in Literary Traditions; Religions and Religious Policy in the Hellenistic and Arsacid Worlds; and the Religious Landscape of the Sasanian World.
About the Melammu Project and Symposia
The main aim of the Melammu Project is to investigate the continuity, transformation, and diffusion of Mesopotamian and ancient Near Eastern cultures from the third millennium BCE until the rise of Islam and beyond. The Melammu Symposia provide a forum, in which the cultural continuity and transformation in the ancient world may be assessed systematically in the longue durée. While the Melammu Symposia typically concentrate on discrete themes, their emphasis remains on cross-cultural perspectives and the continued interchange of ideas between specialists in different disciplines.