EVENT DETAILS

Pasargadae & Persepolis: Sacred Monuments of the Ancient Persians

A talk by Professor Touraj Daryaee

Bower's Museum: Norma Kershaw Auditorium

Fee: $7 Members/ $10 Non-members/ $5 Students with valid I.D.


Professor Touraj Daryaee will discuss the ritual and functional importance of the two great ancient Persian capitals, Cyrus the Great's Pasargadae and Darius' Persepolis. Archaeological, epigraphical, and textual sources suggest that these two capitals functioned as more than simple political centers. They were the location of symbolic rituals, sacrifices, and ceremonies performed to sustain the Empire. Old Persian inscriptions, Greek text, and Elamite cuneiform tablets all provide a window in the deeper meaning of Pasargadae & Persepolis.



Touraj Daryaee is the Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persiante world and the Acting Director of the Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He studied in Iran, Greece and received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1999. His most recent book, Excavating an Empire: Achaemenid Persian in Longue Durée, Mazda Publishers, 2013, will soon be released. His, Oxford History of Iran, Oxford University Press, was published in 2012. He is also the author of Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, IB Tauris, 2010, and Scholars and Humanists: The Letters of S.H. Taqizadeh & W.B. Henning, co-edited by I. Afshar, Mazda Publishers, 2009.


Sponsored by the Persian Arts Council

For more details on the event, please take a look at the following site: http://www.bowers.org/index.php/learn/events_details/2012

A selection of Dr. Daryaee's books will be available for purchase. Book signing follows the lecture.