麻豆影院

Three scholars will give fresh perspectives on ancient Persia in a symposium next month at the 麻豆影院.

鈥淜ing and Kingship in Ancient Persia鈥� is the theme of the Seventh Annual听Celia M. Fountain Symposium听on Saturday, March 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Center for British & Irish Studies, on the fifth floor of Norlin Library at CU 麻豆影院.

The event is free and open to the public.听

At 11 a.m.听Wouter F.M. Henkelman, associate professor at 脡cole Pratique des Hautes 脡tudes, Paris, will deliver a lecture titled, "The Centrality of the King: The Fortification Archive and the Royal Household."

Henkelman explains that with the edition of ever more Elamite cuneiform texts in the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the centrality of the king and the royal household are becoming even more conspicuous than previously.听

鈥淭housands of texts relate to the royal table, to royal travel authorizations, to the royal domain, to royal messengers, and to the king himself,鈥� Henkelman states, adding that the presentation will be an attempt to 鈥渄raw all of these aspects together in a description of the institutional Persepolis economy as a local yet at the same time imperial phenomenon.鈥�

At 1:30 p.m.,听Margaret Cool Root鈥攑rofessor and curator emerita at the Department of the History of Art, the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art & Archaeology, and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Getty Villa Research Scholar 2019 at the Getty Research Institute鈥攚ill deliver a presentation titled, "Performative Arts of Persian Kingship: The Imperial Covenant in Metaphorical Landscapes and Social Spaces."

Root says she will offer 鈥渇resh perspectives on the nature of Achaemenid kingship鈥� gleaned over the last four decades.听

鈥淚 focus on the metaphorically laced iconographical program and performative social space of monumental sculpture in Persepolis, the famed heartland capital of the Achaemenid empire. Into this highly charged built landscape, I interweave the visual evidence of seals used to ratify administrative documents from the site (the Persepolis Fortification tablets),鈥� she states, adding:听

鈥淚n many ways鈥攂oth anticipated and totally unanticipated鈥攖hese seals (and the social data embedded in their associated texts) challenge old orthodoxies about the nature of Persepolis itself and the humans who populated and passed through it.鈥澨�

And at 3:15 p.m.,听Mark Griffith, the Klio distinguished professor of classical languages and literature and professor of theater, dance and performance studies at the University of California at Berkeley, will give a presentation titled, "Imagining the King: Greek Notions and Theatrical Constructions of the Persian Royal Family."

With a focus primarily on Aeschylus'听Persians, but consideration also of other Athenian dramas, Herodotus'听History, and painted representations of theatrical and other scenes set in "Asian" locations, this lecture will explore some of the ways in which Greek creative artists of the 5th century BCE deployed their 鈥渙ften sketchy and fantastical ideas about the great king, his household and his symbols of power, as a way of exploring the heights and depths of human behavior,鈥� Griffith states.

鈥淧ower and servitude, devotion and betrayal, ambition and disappointment, luxury and abjection鈥攅verything is magnified and deliciously exaggerated when those royal and exotic figures come to be presented to a Greek audience: so different, so strange and yet so familiar and engaging.鈥�

Celia M. Fountain established the symposium in 2012 with a planned gift to endow a series of lectures and symposia to enrich the intellectual life of the Department of Classics and of the 麻豆影院 community.

For more information about the event, contact Professor Elspeth Dusinberre by听email听or by phone at 303-492-6257.