“Crafting the Spatial Cosmologies of the Iranian Expanse: Transforming Ancient Iranian Identity through Landscape and the Built Environment”

MATTHEW P. CANEPA, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

This lecture analyzes the formation and development of some of the most enduring expressions of power in Iranian royal culture: palaces, paradise gardens and hunting enclosures, royal cities, sanctuaries and landscapes marked with a rich history of rock art and ritual activity. It explores how these structures, landscapes, and urban spaces constructed and transformed Iranian imperial cosmologies, royal identities, and understandings of the past. It argues that royal engagement with natural, urban, and architectonic space was not merely an ornament or a natural outgrowth of Iranian kingship, but a fundamental tool by which kings in Iran established their dominance, manipulated cultural memory, and appropriated, subsumed, or destroyed the traditions of their competitors. In exploring these problems we seek to understand the continuum between the conceptual, spatial, material, and practical bases of Iranian kingship and their role in forming, supporting, and changing Iranian royal identity.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Ancient Studies (CAS), the History of Art Department (ARTH), and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC).