An archive of the Trust’s lectures, symposia and special events

2024

• 21 March: Cambridge Festival. Cameron Petrie (University of Cambridge; Ancient India & Iran Trust): How Do You Map the Archaeological Heritage of South Asia? The Whys and Wherefores of Large-Scale Mapping and Surveying of Archaeological Sites in the Indus River Basin |Watch
• 15 March: Pierfrancesco Callieri (University of Bologna and ISMEO, Italy): New Observations on the Achaemenid Presence in the Persian Gulf |More
• 1 March: Richard Widdess (SOAS University of London): Music for a Royal Ceremony, Kathmandu 1664 CE |More
• 9 February: Warwick Ball (Near-Eastern archaeologist and author): East of the Wardrobe: Islam and Iran in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia |More
• 26 January: Katherine Schofield (King’s College London): Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Epemeral, 1748–1858 |More

2023

• 15 December: Harold Bailey Memorial Lecture. John Curtis (British Museum; Iran Heritage Foundation): The Oxus Treasure: Fact or Fiction? |More
• 1 December: Katie Campbell (University of Cambridge): The Mongol Conquest and Urban Abandonments at the City of Otrar, Kazakhstan |More
• 11 November: Said Reza Huseini (University of Cambridge):
  Tarikh-i Alfi: The Mughals’ World History |More
• 20 October: Alison Ohta (Royal Asiatic Society): Extraordinary Endeavours: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1823–2023 |More
• 9 June: Sam Lasman (University of Cambridge): Snake Men: Azhdahа̄ in the Persian Epic Tradition |More
• 26 May: Vivek Gupta (University of Cambridge): Intermedial effects around 1400: scribal knowledge and ornament between the Deccan and the Indian Ocean World |More
• 5 May: Sarah Knight (independent scholar): The Pahlavi inscription on the ‘Persian Cross’ of Mylapore in South India, and its implications for the religious identity of the Syrian Christians of Kerala |More
• 28 April: Paulina Niechciał (Jagiellonian University, Kraków): Lived Zoroastrianism: women’s religious practices in the American diaspora |More
• 17 March: Cambridge Festival. Joe Cribb (Hebei Normal University; British Museum; Ancient India & Iran Trust): Money is power: a metaphorical and numismatic approach |More
• 24 February: Janet Pope & Peter Jackson (independent researchers; Ancient India & Iran Trust): The Protestant Mission to the Buryats, 1818–1840 |More
• 17 February: Muhammad Waqar Mushtaq (The Islamia University of Bahawalpur): Mapping Archaeological Heritage in the Cholistan Desert, Pakistan: from screen to field and back again |More

• 27 January: Moazzam Khan Durrani (The Islamia University of Bahawalpur): Magnifying the monumental value of South Punjab, Pakistan: a case study of Bahawalpur state |Watch
  

2022

• 3 December: Eighth Allchin Symposium on South Asian Archaeology |More
• 25 November: Jeffrey P. Charest (independent scholar): Intercultural themes in the Post-Hellenistic music cultures of Bactria, Gandhāra and Indo-Greek kingdoms |More
• 4 November: Ursula Sims-Williams (British Library; Ancient India & Iran Trust): The many faces of Alexander the Great |More
• 14 October: T. Richard Blurton (British Museum; Ancient India & Iran Trust): India: a history in objects |More
• 17 September: Open Cambridge. A hidden gem in the heart of Cambridge: open day |More
• 10 June: John MacGinnis (British Museum): Clash of empires: excavating a Parthian outpost in the mountains of Kurdistan |More
• 20 May: Antonio Panaino (University of Bologna): The souls of women in the Zoroastrian afterlife |More
  
• 1 April: Cambridge Festival. Joe Cribb (Hebei Normal University; British Museum; Ancient India & Iran Trust): The origins of coinage: China and Turkey c. 600 BC |Watch
• 11 March: Priyanka Jha (Banaras Hindu University): Negotiating thresholds: Cornelia Sorabjee’s contributions to shaping Gendered intellectual history in modern India |More
• 18 March: Yousef Moradi (SOAS University of London): The Zoroastrian sanctuary of Takht-e Solayman in the light of newly discovered Sasanian bullae and seal impressions |More

2021

• 17 December: Harold Bailey Memorial Lecture. Nicholas Sims-Williams (SOAS University of London; Ancient India & Iran Trust): ‘Miserable scraps’: the joy of decoding unconsidered trifles |More
• 29 October: Roda Ahluwalia (independent scholar), and Ursula Sims-Williams (British Library; Ancient India & Iran Trust): Insights on Mughal art & culture: the imperial library of the Mughals |More
• 11 June: Cameron Petrie (University of Cambridge; Ancient India & Iran Trust) Living in the borderlands: a lecture to launch the book Resistance at the Edge of Empires: The Archaeology and History of the Bannu Basin from 1000 BC to AD 1200 |More
• 26 March: Cambridge Festival. Samuel N.C. Lieu, (International Union of Academies; Robinson College, Cambridge; Ancient India and Iran Trust): Before Gallipoli there was Homer: the new Trojan war of 1915 |Watch
• 26 February: Emily Hannam (Royal Collection Trust, Windsor Castle): Persia in the Royal Library, Windsor |More
• 12 February: Domenico Agostini (Tel Aviv University) and Samuel Thrope (National Library of Israel; University of Haifa): The search for lost time: insights on Zoroastrian literature from the new translation of the Bundahišn |Watch

2020

• 5 December: Seventh Allchin Symposium on South Asian Archaeology |More
• 4 December: Dinyar Patel (S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai): Naoroji: pioneer of Indian Nationalism |Watch
• 30 October: Joe Cribb (British Museum; Ashmolean Museum; Ancient India & Iran Trust): Coinage in Afghanistan during the period of Islamic conquest c AH 30–256 AD 650–870 |Watch
  

2019

2018

• 7 December: Susan Whitfield (University College London): Silk, slaves and stupas: material culture of the Silk Road |More
• 1 December: Fifth Allchin Symposium on South Asian Archaeology |More
• 30 November: Keynote Lecture, Allchin Symposium on South Asian Archaeology (McDonald Institute): Richard Blurton (British Museum): The Hotung Gallery at the British Museum: different ideas, and some new views of Amaravati |More
• 9 November: Katherine Butler Schofield (King’s College London): The courtesan and the memsahib: Khanum Jan, Sophia Plowden and their Hindustani airs, Lucknow 1788 | More
• 26 October: Cambridge Festival of Ideas: Christine van Ruymbeke (Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge; Ancient India and Iran Trust): Literary criticism and the pendulum of taste: the reception of the Anvar-e Sohayli |More
• 8 June: Deborah Freeman Fahid (independent scholar & former Assistant Curator of The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait): The Àger rock crystal chessmen: some early medieval imports from the Iranian world? | More
• 25 May: Joe Cribb (former Keeper of Coins and Medals, British Museum): Constructing Kushan chronology: Bactria and Gandhara 1st–4th century AD | More
• 18 May: Tree planting in memory of Bridget Allchin | More
• 18 May: Friends’ event: Rachel Rowe (Cambridge University Library): Archival adventures with ephemera: treasures from the Queen Mary Indian Collection | More
• 27 April: Deepak Paramashivan (University of Alberta) with Satvinder Sehmbey on tabla: Soulful Sarangi: an Indian classical music concert | More
• 17 March: Bridget Allchin memorial event at Wolfson College. Michael Petraglia (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena): Following in Bridget Allchin’s footsteps: The current state of archaeology in South Asia | More
• 9 March: Special event for the Friends of the Trust: James Crowden (author): Soldier, spy, archaeologist and academic: the story of Professor K de B Codrington (1899-1986)
• 3 March: Visit of delegation from the Republic of Uzbekistan | More
• 23 February: Christopher Wright (British Library): Robert Ker Porter’s travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia and Mesopotamia 1817-1820 | More
• 2 February: Almut Hintze (SOAS): The Multi-Media Yasna: recent research in Mumbai | More
• 19 January: Emily Hannam (Royal Collection): Georges, Nawabs and Nabobs: the British monarchs and India in the 18th century | More

2017

• 3 December: HW Bailey Memorial Lecture: Peter Frankopan (University of Oxford): Sir Harold Bailey and the content of Indian, Iranian and Asian Studies | More
  
• 17 November: Friends’ Event: Afternoon guided tour of Another India: Exploration and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology with exhibition curator Mark Elliott | More
• 10 November: Ursula Sims-Williams (British Library): Investigating the library of Tipu Sultan of Mysore | More
• 3 November: Mark Elliott (University of Cambridge): Curating Another India: object histories and contemporary voices | More
  
• 23 October: Cameron Petrie (University of Cambridge), part of Cambridge University’s Festival of Ideas: Climate change and collapse: a (not so) simple story of the relationship between climate and the decline of South Asia’s Indus Civilisation
• 20 October: Julius Lipner (University of Cambridge), part of Cambridge University’s Festival of Ideas: Hinduism and the elusiveness of Truth: the quest for integrity
• 13-14 October: Symposium The History of Lahore and the Preservation of its Historic Buildings | More
  
• 16 September: Open House at AIIT | More
• 2 June: Hans Bakker (British Museum) The Huns in Central and South Asia | More
• 26 May: Jesse Palsetia (Guelph) Parsi traders & travellers in the Age of Empire | More
• 12 May: Sâqib Bâburi (British Library) The Windsor Padshahnamah: A Royal Copy of Shah Jahan’s Chronicle) | More
  
• 5 May: Special event for the Friends of the Trust: Julius Lipner (Cambridge) Work in progress: from Bengal to Cambridge and back again – many times | More
  
• 24 April: Giles Tillotson (Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur): Recent developments at the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur | More
  
• 11 March: Book launch: Holy Wealth: Accounting for This World and The Next in Religious Belief and Practice: Festschrift for John R. Hinnells | More
  
• 3 March: Special event for Friends of the Trust Catherine Ansorge (University Library, Cambridge): The Reverend George Lewis and his collection of Persian manuscripts | More
  
• 10 February: Elizabeth Key Fowden (FAMES/Classics, University of Cambridge): Eastern Kings and Ancient Philosophers in Ottoman Athens| More
  
• 27 January: Suraiya Faroqhi (Istanbul Bilgi University): Importing and marketing Iranian fabrics | More
  

2016

• 2-3 December: 4th Annual Allchin Symposium | More
  
• 2 December: Jennifer Scarce (University of Dundee)
  Qajar nostalgia for Sassanians | More
  
• 18 November: Christian Sahner (St John’s College, Cambridge)
  Zoroastrians and Christians under early Muslim rule | More
  
• 28 October: in association with the Cambridge Festival of Ideas:
  Alan Williams (University of Manchester): Migration and the Mango Tree that Walked: the Arrival of Persian Zoroastrians in Eighth-century India
  
• 21 October: Sudeshna Guha (Shiv Nadar University)
  ‘Nineveh’ in Bombay and histories of Indian Archaeology | More
  
• 14 October: Special event for Friends of the Trust
  Conor Jameson and Stephanie Morren (RSPB): Save Asia’s Vultures | More
  
• 9 July: Rubaiyat Research Day | More
  
• 20 June: Reception for workshop ‘Khamriyya as a World Poetic Genre’ | More
• 12 June: AIIT Summer Garden Party | More
  
• 3 June: AIIT Honorary Fellow Lecture 2016
  Anna Dallapiccola: South Indian mural paintings (16th to 18th centuries) | More
  
• 22-23 May: Board Meeting and Workshop of the Societas Iranologica Europaea
• 20 May: Katherine Schofield (King’s College, London)
  Music, art and affective power between 16th century North India and the Deccan
• 12.5.16 Award of Sinor Medal to Nicholas Sims-Williams and Lecture: The Bactrian Archives | More
  
• 6 May: Special Event for Friends of the Trust
  Geoffrey Hales: Kipling in India – a dramatized talk
  
• 18 March: Part of the Cambridge Science Festival
  Raymond Mercier (Cambridge): Calendars in India and a problem with eclipses in Orissa | More
• 26 February: Special Event for Friends of the Trust
  T. Richard Blurton (British Museum): Krishna in the Garden of Assam
  
• 19 February: Arthur Dudney (Cambridge)
  What language did Kiyomars speak? Seventeenth and Eighteenth century theories on the origins of Persian| More
  
• 12 February: Michelle Quay (Cambridge)
  Female Heroism in Sufi Hagiographical texts – from Sulami (d. 1021) to ‘Attar (d. ca. 1221) | More
  

2015

• 16 December: Book launch: Arts of the Hellenized East | More
• 27 November: Robin Ackroyd
  Mongol nutag, Chingisiin Ongon – Monglian homeland, Genghis Khan’s tomb
• 20 November: Friends Event
  Almut Hintze (SOAS): Living scholarship: a journey into Indo-Iranian Studies
• 6 November: Cameron Petrie (Cambridge)
  Adaptation to variable environments, resilience to climate change; Land, Water and Settlement and the Indus Civilization
• 16 October: Christine van Ruymbeke (Cambridge)
  Kashefi’s Anvar-e Sohayli: Rewriting Kalila wa-Dimna in Timurid Herat
• 5 June: Rosemary Crill (Senior Curator, Asian Department, V&A Museum)
  The Fabric of India
• 8 May: John Falconer (Curator of Visual Arts, British Library)
  Photography and the Archaeological Survey of India 1855-1900
• 24 April: Margaret Cone (Darwin College, Cambridge)
  The Joys and Sorrows of Pali
• 6 March: François de Blois (UCL)
  Sasanian royalist ideology and Zoroastrian millennialism
• 20 February: Vesta Curtis (British Museum)
  The power and purpose of iconography in ancient Iran
• 6 February: Special Event for Friends of the Trust
  Sam Lieu (Macquarie University, Sydney): Between Parthia and Rome – Palmyra and Dura Europos
• 23 January: Gabor Kosa (ELTE University, Budapest)
  Judgement after death: the Manichaean cosmology painting

2014

• 5-6 December: Second Annual Allchin Symposium on South Asian Archaeology
• 5 December: at the McDonald Institute for Archeological Research,
  Prof Michael Petraglia (Oxford): South Asia: Central or Peripheral to the Out of Africa Story
• 28 November: Razia Sultanova (Cambridge)
  Music of the Uzbeks of Northern Aghanistan
• 14 November: Sam van Schaik (British Library)
  The Married Monks of Kroraina
• 7 November: Friends screening of: Following the Peacock, a film by Dr Eszther Spät
• 24 October: part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas
  Sir Nicholas Barrington: Envoy – the experiences of a diplomat in Asia
• 17 October: Imre Galambos (Cambridge)
  A Forgotten Civilisation: Remains of the Tangut Kingdom in Central Asia
• 16 May: Nicholas Sims-Williams (SOAS)
  Go East Young Man! A personal journey
• 23 May: Touraj Daryaee (UCI)
  The Sasanian Empire as a Garden: The walls and rivers of the Sasanian Empire
• 11 May: Half day workshop
  Bactria and the transition to Islam
• 9 May: Nina Mirnig
  The Religious Centre of Pashupatinath: Early Nepalese Shaiva Inscriptions in Context
• 25 April: Prof Geoffrey Greatrex (Ottawa)
  Procopius’ Persian Tales: entertainment, history or morality fable?
• 21 February: Janice Stargardt (Cambridge)
  The Early Kingdoms of Burma 1st-8th century CE
• 14 February: Eleanor Sims
  Heinrich Friedrich von Diez’s “little Collection of Paintings Illustrating Firdausi’s Shahnama”
  

2013

• 13 December: Bailey Memorial Lecture
  Professor Maria Macuch (Berlin): Kinship Ties and Fictive Alliances in Sasanian Law
• 6 December: part of inaugural Annual Allchin Symposium in South Asian Archaeology
  Prof. Adam Hardy (Cardiff): Digging up Designs: reconstructing medieval Indian temples from stones, drawings and texts
• 29 November: Christophe ROUSTAN-DELATOUR (Museums of Cannes)
  The Spirit of Place: Penelope Betjeman’s Himalayan photographs
• 29 November: Himalaya Round-table
• 8 November: Dr Llewelyn MORGAN (Oxford)
  Gradus ad Aornon. Classicists in NW India & Afghanistan
• 1 November: Prof. Monica SMITH (UCLA)The Urban Hinterlands of Kalinga in the Early Historic period: Archaeology at Sisupalgarh and Talapada
• 25 October:  Dr Cameron PETRIE
  Frontiers and edges of empires: living in the borderlands of Pakistan from the Neolithic to the spread of Islam
• 14 June: Maria SCHETELICH (Leipzig)
  Why Chess could have been invented in India. A never-ending Story
• 7 June: Friends event:
  Dr Sudeshna Guha: Tour of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
• 31 May: Dr Arezou AZAD (Oxford)
  The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage project: exploration, maps and silk road history from Balkh, northern Afghanistan
• 24 May: Dinyar PATEL (Harvard)
  Indians in Late Victorian Britain: Perspectives from the Naoroji Papers
• 3 May: Professor Almut HINTZE (SOAS)
  A Zoroastrian Vision
• 1 March: Dr Jeevan DEOL (Cambridge)
  The Sikhs of Afghanistan: some notes toward a cultural, social and literary history ca. 1600-2012
• 15 February: Dr John MACGINNIS (Cambridge)
  Excavating a Provincial capital of the Assyrian Empire: The Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project
• 11 January: Dr Badshah SARDAR (Ancient India & Iran Trust)
  Buddhist Collection of Nimogram Swat, Pakistan: Its History, Classification, Analysis and Chronology

2012

• 30 November: Dr Peter JOHANSEN (British Columbia)
  Following in the Footsteps of the Allchins: Recent Archaeological Research in Central Karnataka
• 23 November: Professor Louise MARLOW (Wellesley College)
  Ancient Wisdom in Early Arabic Advice Literature
• 16 November: Dr Annabel GALLOP (British Library)
  Ottoman Links across the Indian Ocean
• 2 November: Professor Eijiro DOYAMA (University of Osaka)
  The unusual birth of the hero in ancient Indian mythology
• 24 October: Professor Almut HINTZE (SOAS)
  A Zoroastrian Vision
• 25 May (3pm): Friends Event
  A guided tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s exhibition The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, led by exhibition curator Dr James Lin, Senior Assistant Keeper of Applied Arts
• 11 May: Sue Stronge (Asian Department, V&A Museum)
  Court art in the reign of Jahangir
• 4 May: Professor Julius Lipner (Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge)
  A Hostage to Fortune? Hinduism and the Classical
• 27 April: Professor Jean Kellens (Collége de France, Paris)
  Some Thoughts on Young Avestan Polytheism
• 9 March: Dr Agnes Korn (Frankfurt)
  Discoveries in language from modern and ancient times: Caucasian-Albanian to modern Udi
• 24 February: Friends Event
  Ursula Sims-Williams (Ancient India & Iran Trust and British Library)
  Harold Bailey: Founding Trustee of the Ancient India & Iran Trust
• 17 February: Dr Gillian JULEFF (Exeter)
  Technology and evolution: Asian metallurgy from protohistoric Sri Lanka to Japanese steel
• 10 February: Mr Kaveh BAKHTIAR (SOAS)
  Islamic Architecture of Britain
• 27 January: Dr Bruno de NICOLA (Cambridge)
  The Mongol Khatun’s Economic Activity

2011

• 2 Dec: Dr Paul RUSSELL and Dr Elizabeth BOYLE (Cambridge)
  Colonialism and Celticism: Whitley Stokes in India (1862-1882)
• 25 Nov: Dr Razia SULTANOVA (Director, Centre for Central Asian Music, and Fellow, Central Asian Forum, Cambridge)
  Music from Central Asia: From Shamanism to Sufism
• 11 Nov: Veronica DOUBLEDAY (Independent Scholar)
  The Legacy of Quatrain Singing as practiced in Afghanistan
• 28 Oct: Dr Ilya YAKUBOVICH (Moscow State University)
  The Invention of Old Persian
• 26 Oct (Wed): Professor Nicholas SIMS-WILLIAMS (SOAS)
  Deciphering Bactrian- An Illustrated Lecture
• 14 Oct: Prof. A. POOLE (Cambridge), Dr. C van RUYMBEKE (Cambridge), William MARTIN and Sandra MASON (Independent Scholars & Chairs of AIIT Friends)
  Omar Khayyám and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát after 2009
• 10 June: Professor Herman TIEKEN (University of Leiden, Netherlands)
  The function of the So-called Ashoka Pillars
• 20 May: Dr Christiane ESCHE-RAMSHORN (Independent)
  Christian Art between Europe and the Middle East (14th-15th c.). Nakhitchevan and its sacred geography explored in a multi-faith context
• 6 May: Professor Alberto CANTERA, (University of Salamanca)
  Why do we really need a new edition of the Avesta?
• 19 April: Professor Robin CONINGHAM, (University of Durham)
  Lumbini: preserving and protecting a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nepal
• 11 March: Anton ZYKOV (St Antony’s College, University of Oxford)
  Nasusalars and khandias in the Zoroastrian communities of Iran and India
• 25 February: Dr Erica HUNTER (School of African and Oriental Studies London)
  The Christian Library from Turfan
• 4 February: Dr Vincenzo VERGIANI (University of Cambridge)
  Pānini’s Grammar: its role in the hegemony of Sanskrit and some open questions
• 28 January: Professor Samuel N.C. LIEU, (Macquarie University, Australia)
  From Xerxes to Kemal Ataturk

2010

• 10 Dec: Bailey Memorial Lecture: Professor Frantz Grenet (Paris)
  The rediscovery of the court culture of the Qarakhanids (11th to early 13th centuries): recent results of the French-Uzbek Archaeological Mission at Afrasiab (Samarkand)
• 26 Nov: Dr Annabel Gallop (British Library) and Dr Venetia Porter (British Museum) (lecture accompanying exhibition)
  Islamic Seals: Treasures from the British Library and the British Museum
• 19 Nov: Friends Event
  Guided visit to the Shahname exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, with Prof. Charles Melville.
• 12 Nov: A celebration of the life and work of Dr Bridget Allchin and the late Dr Raymond Allchin
  Professor Robin Coningham (Durham): From Kabul to Kelaniya: Raymond Allchin and the Archaeology of South Asia
  Professor Robin Dennell (Sheffield): A life in stone: a retrospective appreciation of Bridget Allchin and the South Asian Palaeolithic’
• 29 Oct: Roger Cooper
  A New Look at the Sikhs
• 15 Oct: Professor Charles Melville (Cambridge)
  An Illustrated Shahname
• 4 June: Professor Vicente Dobroruka (University of Brasilia)
  Hellenistic Political Propaganda and Zoroastrian Oracles
• 28 May: Dr Rosemary Crill (Senior Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)
  The Indian Portrait 1560–1860
• 15 May: Special event
  Recent Research on the Cultural History of Sri Lanka
• 14 May: Dr Sethuraman Suresh (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, Chennai, India)
  From Kanchipuram to Kampuchea: A Millennium of Trade and Cultural Exchanges between South India and Cambodia
• 7 May: Professor Stanley Insler (Yale University)
  The Oldest Zoroastrian Calendar
• 12 February: Dr Cameron Petrie (University of Cambridge)
  Lost rivers and life on the plains — human interaction with the environment in early Indian civilization
• 29 January: Professor Michael Pye (University of Marburg and Otani University, Kyoto)
  Lives of the Buddha and the initial dynamics of the Buddhist religion
• 15 January: Conor Jameson and Rhys Green (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, London)
  Cause and consequences of the catastrophic decline of vultures across South Asia