#  Understanding Afro-Eurasian Entanglements across Hellenistic Asia and the Post-Achaemenid Iranian World: Transculturation, Entanglement, and Assemblage 

 



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####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 17, 2025** 

 12:00PM - 01:30PM EDT 

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This seminar examines Seleucid, Greco-Bactrian and Arsacid luxury material within and beyond Iran both as object and idea. As under the Achaemenids before and Sasanians after, these charismatic objects potentially entangled or “assembled” aspects of identities of those outside the empire at a range of societal levels, including those who had dealings with the empire and those who encountered them even in negative and in reaction. It is equally useful to periodically shift our focus from material cultures and artistic traditions, to considering them within aggregate ‘assemblage-scapes’ to provide a more variegated understanding of their shifting significances between Mediterranean, Iranian and steppe spheres. Material-discursive-temporal assemblages, such as records of Stratonice's donations to Delos or Seleucus I's gift to Miletus, and complex excavated finds from sites such as the treasury at Seleucid-to-Kushan temple of Takht-Sangin, the Arsacid treasury in the fortress of Nisa, and Sarmatian burials provide a textured view of the Afro-Eurasian material and anachronic political entanglements in which this luxury material participated, as do correspondences with objects and archaeological assemblages at sites such as the burial at Tillya Tepe in Bactria, though we will not spend equal time on all sites/periods. I will be using this to present developing (sometimes rough) parts of my current book project to take advantage of your collective, interests, perspectives and expertise. The format is flexible and will oscillate between lecture and discussion, focusing on the ancient evidence but introducing theoretical debates that may (or may not) provide traction on it.



 

 



 

 

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