The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards
International Meeting
Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Padova, Italy
29 September – 2 October 2026
Twenty-five years after the 2001 meeting dedicated to the Medes and their place in the history of the Ancient Near East, an international group of scholars will gather once again in Padova for “The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards.”
The meeting will take place in the historic main hall of the Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti and will provide a forum for scholarly discussion and exchange among specialists from different disciplines and methodological traditions.
A central aim of the meeting is to encourage dialogue between different approaches to the Medes and their historical legacy. Particular attention will be devoted to perspectives from archaeology, Ancient Near Eastern history, Greek and Roman historiography, Iranian and Persian heritage, and modern socio-political concepts and developments.
Programme
- Tuesday, 29 September 2026, 4:00 PM
Welcome Address
Giovanna Zaniolo — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
Robert Rollinger — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova / Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
Introduction
Robert Rollinger — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften - Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 9:30 AM
Chair: Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
Hagmatāna: An Archaeological Inquiry into the Material Culture of the ‘Median Period’ (Iron Age III)
Mehrdad Malekzadeh — Iranian Center for Archaeological Research
Zahra Golmohammadi — University of Münster
The Archaeology of Mannea
Kazem Mollazadeh — Bu-Ali Sina University Hamadan
Coffee Break
Chair: Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
The Historical Geography of Media
Iraj Rezaei — University of Tehran
Between Assyria and the Iranian Highlands: the Dinka Settlement Complex and the Problem of the Medes
Andrea Squitieri — Università degli studi di Padova
Lunch - Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 2:30 PM
Chair: Jan Tavernier — Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Dealing with a Powerful Neighbour: Media and Babylonia at the turn of the 6th century BCE
Clara Gibert — Université Paris 1 Sorbonne
The Medes in Aramaic Sources
Holger Gzella — Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Coffee Break
Chair: Irene Salvo — Università degli studi di Verona
The Medes in Classical sources
Kai Ruffing — Universität Kassel
Median Revisited: Linguistic Origins and the Spread of Median Loanwords
Milad Abedi — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Coffee Break
Chair: Melanie Malzahn — Universität Wien
Keynote: Iranian, Median, Zagrosian: linguistic variety in Northwest Iran during the first millennium BCE
Adriano Rossi — Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” - Thursday, 1 October 2026, 9:30 AM
Chair: Luigi Turri — Università degli studi di Verona
Arabs of the east: the Medes in a global perspective
Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
New light on Medo-Babylonian campaigning against the Assyrian west
Alexander J. Edmonds — University of Münster
Coffee Break
Chair: Gian Pietro Basello — Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
The collapse of the Assyrian Empire – global considerations and eastern perspectives
John MacGinnis — British Museum London & University of Cambridge
Rethinking Cyrus at the Median Court: The Royal Hostage Tradition Revisited
Yazdan Safaee — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Lunch - Thursday, 1 October 2026, 2:30 PM
Chair: Sebastian Fink — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Herodotus, Greek Genealogies, and the Succession of Empires
Julian Degen — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Where were the Seven Walls of Ecbatana? The Medes between Myth & Archaeology
Touraj Daryaee — University of California at Irvine
Coffee Break
Chair: Florian Schwarz — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
The Image of the Medes in Early Armenian Historiography
Yervand Grekyan — National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
Tribes among Ancient and Modern Kurds
Nicola degli Esposti — Università degli studi di Bologna
Coffee Break
Chair: Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
Keynote: TBA
Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere e Arti in Padova - Friday, 2 October 2026, 9:30 AM
Chair: Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
Looking for the Medes in Urartian History
Annarita S. Bonfanti — New York University
The Construct of Median Art and Archaeology: Media in the Antiquities Market, Historiography and Political Narratives of the 20th Century
Matthew Canepa — University of California at Irvine
Coffee Break
Chair: Omar Coloru — Università degli studi di Bari Aldo Moro
The Dream of Astyages: Echoes of the Medes in the Western Imagination
Ian Macgregor-Morris — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
TBA
Hemati Azandaryani — Bu-Ali Sina University
Lunch - Friday, 2 October 2026, 2:30 PM
Chair: Sebastian Fink — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
Kerkeneš Dağ and the Median Western Frontier
Andrea Bianchini — Università di Verona
The Medes and Native Iranian Historical Traditions
Reza Sh. Zarghamee — University of Saint Andrews, Scotland
Coffee Break
Chair: Robert Rollinger — Österreichisches Akademie der Wissenschaften
CONCLUSION AND FINAL DISCUSSION
Josef Wiesehöfer — Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
M. Rahim Shayegan — University of California in Los Angeles