The conference will once again centre on the Achaemenid Empire and those borderlands that research has only sporadically looked at so far: the Central Asian east, India and the Indian Ocean in the south-east, as well as the steppe regions in the north and north-east. The focus here is on interactions not only in spatial but also in temporal dimensions and thus on the systematic recording of innovations, breaks and continuities.
Organized by Robert Rollinger
Fri 21 November – Sat 22 November, 2025
Innsbruck, Austria
Ágnes-Heller-Haus (Innrain 52a)
Program:
Opening
10:00-10:30 Welcome Address
Brigitte Truschnegg (Innsbruck) | Dean of Studies, Faculty of Philosophy
and History
Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck) | Organizer
Section 1
Chair: Melanie Malzahn (Vienna)
10:30-11:15 Formation of Frontier: New archaeological perspectives on nomadic-sedentary interaction between Lake Aral and Sogdiana (800-500 BCE)
Sören Stark (New York)
11:15-12:00 The Imperial State/Political Formation of the Achaemenids. Nomads, Frontiers and Empires, between Central Asia and the Steppes
Bruno Genito (Naples)
12:00-13:00 Lunch Break
Section 2
Chair: M. Rahim Shayegan (Los Angeles)
13:00-13:45 Local Evolutions of Central Asian Polities during the Achaemenid Period
Johanna Lhuillier (Lyon)
13:45-14:30 The Northern Frontiers in History and Myth
Anca Dan (Paris)
14:30-15:00 Coffee Break
Section 3
Chair: Bernhard Palme (Vienna) & Suchandra Ghosh (Hyderabad)
15:45-16:30 Persians in Northern Gandhara: An Achaemenid Mirage?
Elisa Iori (Venice), co-authors Omar Coloru (Bari) & Luca Maria Olivieri (Venice)
15:00-15:45 The Vine of the King: Monarchic Ideology between the Iranian and Indian Worlds
Claudia Antonetti (Venice)
16:30-17:00 Coffee Break
Section 4
Chair: Florian Schwarz (Vienna) & Josef Wiesehöfer (Kiel)
17:00-17:45 Cultural Heritage as Political Negotiation on the Boundaries of the Achaemenid Empire
Jenn Finn (Chicago)
17:45-18:30 Alexander, India and Western Asia Minor: Imperial Borderlands in Comparison
Julian Degen (Innsbruck)
18:30 Buffet
Saturday, Nov 22
Section 5
Chair: Nina Mirnig (Vienna) & Robin Coningham (Durham)
09:30-10:15 The Mauryas and Achaemenids: Looking afresh at old Theories
Upinder Singh (Sonipat)
10:15-11:00 The Impact of Achaemenid Writing in India and the Linguistic Background to the Aramaic Ashoka Inscriptions
Holger Gzella (Munich)
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
Section 6
Chair: Wu Xin (Bryn Mawr)
11:30-12:15 A Kingdom of Clay (and Parchment): Tracing the Indus Province through Parsa Administration
Gian Pietro Basello (Naples)
12:15-13:00 How Persian was Chorasmia? Reassessing the Achaemenid Imprint in Northeastern Central Asia through Fieldwork
Michele Minardi (Naples)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
Section 7
Chair: Touraj Daryaee (Irvine)
14:00-14:45 Connecting Centres and Borderlands: The Upper Satrapies as Hubs of Routes
Hilmar Klinkott (Kiel)
14:45-15:30 Revolt and Sedition in the Eastern Satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire: An Unsolvable Mystery?
Orestis Belogiannis (Strasbourg)
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
Section 8
Chair: Kai Ruffing (Kassel)
16:00-16:45 Persian Elites and the Achaemenid Northeast: Negotiating Power in the Borderlands
Yazdan Safaee (Innsbruck)
16:45-17:30 Interaction between Central Asia and the Achaemenid Empire
Jan Tavernier (Louvain)
17:30-18:00 Concluding Remarks | Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck)
19:00 Conference Dinner