Lecture Series in Islamic Archeology

Rocco Rante, Musée du Louvre

“Iranian cities: Dynamics of Occupation and Water Management, between Late Antiquity and the Early Islamic Period”

A city is conceived as the result of cultural choices, linked to different political, economic, functional and climatic needs. Within these needs there is also the will to determine a territory in which these societies can work, realise projects, produce and exchange both internally and externally. The requisite territorial delimitation has been conducted with the overriding necessity of being near sources of water. Directly linked to water exploitation is the morphology of this territorial delimitation, which is at the origin of the formation of the urban nucleus. This presentation will focus on some cities in a vast geographical area including Iran, northwest Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which overall could be divided into two large geographical regions: the Persian territories and the Central Asian steppes. Cities will be examined between late antiquity and the early Islamic period. After an introduction of the cities through a geographical approach, a limited number of examples will be presented within a global framework in the pre-Islamic period and focus on observations about Islamic urbanization. The approach of this study is primarily geo- archaeological.

This event is sponsored by the History of Art Department and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations