East-West cultural interconnections in antiquity: Greek-Iranian encounters and interactions (ca. 550 BC – AD 651)

In conjunction with the collection of material evidence that relates to the Greek presence and Greek-Iranian interactions within the territory of the modern state of Iran in antiquity (see the project “Mapping Ancient Cultural Encounters: Greeks in Iran ca. 550 BC – ca. AD 650”) and the study of the Achaemenid Empire, the present research focuses on the scattered material remains of the encounters between the ancient Greek and Iranian worlds. Included among these physical remains are inscriptions, monumental edifices, works of sculpture, objects in ceramic and metal, coins and seals, whose verbal testimony, technical execution, styles, forms, and imagery variously allude to the mutually open horizons (and receptivity) of craftsmen and patrons in the Greek and Iranian spheres to each other’s material culture and artistic creations, aesthetics, social customs and practices, and worldviews. Long-standing research on the subject supplied motivation, among others, for the organization, under the auspices of the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO, of the first international conference on ancient Greek-Iranian cross-cultural encounters, as a joint initiative of Greek and Iranian research institutions (award: “World Prize for the Book of the Year of the I.R. Iran” 2010). In 2018-2020, research on the subject was conducted as part of the international program of research workshops “Material Entanglements in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond”.