PhD candidate

Food and Identity on the Silk Roads - Reconstructing Commensality from Sasanian pottery

PhD abstract: The Sasanian Empire (225-640 C.E.) was one of the most influential dynasties in the ancient world and is considered a defining period in Iranian history. Yet this important epoch is archaeologically not well understood due to the lack of systematically excavated Sasanian sites, which means that scholars working on this period have been forced to primarily rely on historical sources, monumental architecture, and unique objects that have survived in public and private collections. Therefore, Sasanian material culture has primarily been approached from an art-historical or building archaeology oriented point of view, leading to a bias in Sasanian archaeology, where less attention has been paid to the mundane artefacts of everyday life, such as pottery.

In my PhD research I am studying Sasanian pottery from selected sites in northern Iran and Southern Turkmenistan and how  functional analysis and use-wear studies can be used to reconstruct everyday practices in the Late Antiquity with particular attention to food ways.

The PhD project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bernbeck and Prof. Dr. Susan Pollock.

For further information, please check Thuesen, Mette Bangsborg • Berliner Antike-Kolleg (berliner-antike-kolleg.org)