Matthew Canepa (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is an historian of the art and archaeology of the ancient Iranian world, broadly conceived. His most recent book, and winner of the 2020 James R. Wiseman award from the Archaeological Institute of America, is: The Iranian Expanse (UC Press, 2018), which explores the transformation of Iranian identity through the natural and built environments. Previous publications include: Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction (Washington D.C. 2010) and The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley 2009 [2010]), which was awarded the 2010 James Henry Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association for best book in any field of history prior to 1000 CE. Address: University of California, Irvine Department of Art History 2000 Humanities Gateway Irvine, CA 92697-2785
A cutting-edge analysis of 2,500 years of Persian visual, architectural, and material cultures of... more A cutting-edge analysis of 2,500 years of Persian visual, architectural, and material cultures of power and their role in connecting the world.
With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), Persian institutions of kingship became the model for legitimacy, authority, and prestige across three continents. Despite enormous upheavals, Iranian visual and political cultures connected an ever-wider swath of Afro-Eurasia over the next two millennia, exerting influence at key historical junctures. This book provides the first critical exploration of the role Persian cultures played in articulating the myriad ways power was expressed across Afro-Eurasia between the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century CE.
Exploring topics such as royal cosmologies, fashion, banqueting, manuscript cultures, sacred landscapes, and inscriptions, the volume’s essays analyze the intellectual and political exchanges of art, architecture, ritual, and luxury material within and beyond the Persian world. They show how Perso-Iranian cultures offered neighbors and competitors raw material with which to formulate their own imperial aspirations. Unique among studies of Persia and Iran, this volume explores issues of change, renovation, and interconnectivity in these cultures over the longue durée.
The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natura... more The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment—everything from royal cities and paradise gardens, to hunting enclosures and fire temples—to form and contest Iranian cultural memory, royal identity, and sacred cosmologies over a thousand years of history. Although scholars have often noted startling continuities between the traditions of the Achaemenids and the art and architecture of medieval or Early Modern Islam, the tumultuous millennium between Alexander and Islam has routinely been downplayed or omitted. The Iranian Expanse delves into this fascinating period, examining royal culture and identity as something built and shaped by strategic changes to architectonic and urban spaces and the landscape of Western Asia. Canepa shows how the Seleucids, Arsacids, and Sasanians played a transformative role in developing a new Iranian royal culture that deeply influenced not only early Islam, but also the wider Persianate world of the Il-Khans, Safavids, Timurids, and Mughals.
THE TWO EYES OF THE EARTH is the first sustained and theoretically rigorous study of the evolutio... more THE TWO EYES OF THE EARTH is the first sustained and theoretically rigorous study of the evolution of a supra-religious yet sacral cross-cultural language of kingship between the late Roman empire and Sasanian Iran (224-642 CE). It investigates the shared ideal of sacred kingship that emerged in the late Roman and Persian empires. This shared ideal, while often generating conflict during the four centuries of the empires' coexistence (224-642), also drove exchange, especially the means and methods Roman and Persian sovereigns used to project their notions of universal rule: elaborate systems of ritual and their cultures' visual, architectural, and urban environments. Matthew Canepa explores the artistic, ritual, and ideological interactions between Rome and the Iranian world under the Sasanian dynasty, the last great Persian dynasty before Islam. He analyzes how these two hostile systems of sacred universal sovereignty not only coexisted, but fostered cross-cultural exchange and communication despite their undying rivalry. Bridging the traditional divide between classical and Iranian history, this book brings to life the dazzling courts of two global powers that deeply affected the cultures of medieval Europe, Byzantium, Islam, South Asia, and China.
SCHOLARSHIP ON THE VISUAL CULTURES of ancient and early medieval Eurasia has recently benefited f... more SCHOLARSHIP ON THE VISUAL CULTURES of ancient and early medieval Eurasia has recently benefited from art history’s renewed interest in questions that transcend political and cultural boundaries.1 Issues of cross-cultural interaction, however, have not enjoyed from art historians working on the ancient and early medieval worlds a level of critical attention commensurate with the number of problems arising from the material. As a result, many of those who work in the arts and cultures of the Mediterranean, Near East, and Asia have found themselves drawn closer together, but without a common vocabulary or debate with which to engage.
The organizing goal of this volume is to highlight these theoretical considerations and provide a forum where art historians of the ancient and medieval worlds can explore these problems of cross-cultural interaction with greater rigor. It does not intend to provide a comprehensive theoretical overview or art historical survey of Eurasian artistic interchange, nor an overarching theory. Rather, it aims to contribute critical perspectives drawn from premodern visual cultures to the wider theoretical conversation. The papers contained herein critically evaluate some of the most important problems encountered in the material: the cross-continental movement and selective appropriation of objects and motifs through trade; the impact of new ways of seeing, being seen, and acting introduced by these objects; the role of art and ritual in negotiations of power among empires; and representations and self-portrayals of ethnicity and gender within and beyond dominant visual cultures.
This essay focuses on the Sasanian dynasty's efforts to create a coherent cosmology to support th... more This essay focuses on the Sasanian dynasty's efforts to create a coherent cosmology to support their imperial project and explores the ways in which Zoroastrian dualism and apocalyptic eschatology were suborned to serve among the Sasanians’ key conceptual frameworks of empire. Compared with all other Iranian dynasties, the Sasanians are rivaled only by the Achaemenids in their obsession with framing and interpreting royal action and identity through the dualistic and eschatological lens of Iranian religion. Although separated by centuries, the commonalities between the royal discourse of the Achaemenid and Sasanian dynasties attest to a long tradition of Persian political dualism and apocalyptic eschatology, which were themselves in intense dialog with religious discourse. Nonetheless, the Sasanians’ strategic leveraging of dualism and eschatology as an imperial tool was a dynamic response to contemporary challenges. They incorporated these concepts into their contemporary political discourse and relied on them during key junctures to provide coherency to both internal conflicts and external threats.
Essay and catalogue entries (marked MPC) for the catalogue of the exhibition Persia: Iran and the... more Essay and catalogue entries (marked MPC) for the catalogue of the exhibition Persia: Iran and the Classical World, eds. J. Spiers, T. Potts and S. Cole (Los Angeles: Getty, 2022)
(Essay and catalogue entries on Parthian silver from the exhibition catalogue Persia and the Clas... more (Essay and catalogue entries on Parthian silver from the exhibition catalogue Persia and the Classical World, Getty Villa)
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Silver.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Rhyta from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 107: Bowl with an Anchor and a Dolphin.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 108: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.1) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 109: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.2) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 110: Rhyton in the Form of a Lion.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 111: Rhyton in the Form of a Stag.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Afterlives of Ancient Rock-Cut Monuments in the Ancient Near East: Carvings in and Out of Time, 2021
This chapter and the larger body of work on which it builds focuses on what I characterize as the... more This chapter and the larger body of work on which it builds focuses on what I characterize as the environmental, spatial, and visual bases of Iranian iden- tity and royal power: that is, landscape, architecture, the built environment, and the ritual activities they hosted. These, I argue, played a complementary, and no less central role in establishing and changing Iranian identity as that of textual or oral discourse. I have argued in several places that royal engage- ment with natural, urban and architectonic space was not merely a reflection or trapping of imperial power, but a fundamental tool by which sovereigns created and transformed royal identity and continually instantiated it with ritual practice.
Common Dwelling Place of all the Gods Commagene in its Local, Regional and Global Hellenistic Context , 2021
The Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene exerted an outsized influence on the volatile world of post-... more The Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene exerted an outsized influence on the volatile world of post-Seleucid Western Asia given its small size and relatively recent independence. While Commagene is now starting to find a place within the Hellenistic Mediterranean, it is only beginning to be fully and meaningfully integrated into the history of the Iranian world. Building on recent work, this chapter thus offers an inquiry into the origins of Commagene’s Persian royal legacy and Iranian religious traditions under Antiochos I, and the cultural and geopolitical contexts that informed their development. Its primary goal is to provide historical nuance for the ‘Persian traditions’ that scholarship has frequently treated as a complete invention or the outgrowth of a monolithic and essentialized Zoroastrianism. It considers the extent to which these traditions grew from an Iranian constituency in place within Commagene since the Achaemenid period or, more likely, arose from a more restricted courtly or dynastic milieu. In so doing, it analyses the dynastic legacy of the Orontids of Sophene and Armenia and the techniques by which they crafted their royal identity and the nature of their impact on Commagene. In particular, it seeks to strike a balance between the epigraphic and archaeological evidence offered by the Antiochos I’s monuments, which provide the most abundant evidence, and what we can descry about the region’s and the dynasty’s earlier traditions from the archaeological record and fragmentary textual sources.
The Getty Villa holds one of the world’s largest collections of luxury silver vessels from the Pa... more The Getty Villa holds one of the world’s largest collections of luxury silver vessels from the Parthian period of ancient Iran (ca. 238 BCE–ca. 224 CE). This article imparts several new insights into one of its most well-known objects: the stag rhyton. Discoveries include a new inscription on the vessel, technical observations from the first endoscopic examination of its interior, and a new correct weight. The main inscription has heretofore never been integrated into art historical discussions. In addition to presenting a new transliteration, transcription, and translation for the main inscription, this article establishes a more precise date for the vessel. The stag rhyton has served as an important point of reference for dating silver vessels from Hellenistic and Parthian Iran in collections worldwide. In several cases, however, the rhyton’s previously accepted date conflicts with other assessments. The new date range presented here may resolve such discrepancies. In addition, the article presents new corrected technical information for the Getty's two lynx rhyta, whose weights were recorded incorrectly in previous publications.
A popular piece written for the International arts magazine Apollo in conjunction with the V&A an... more A popular piece written for the International arts magazine Apollo in conjunction with the V&A and Getty exhibitions on ancient Iran. https://www.apollo-magazine.com
The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCE–600 CE. Edited by Richard E. Payne and Rhyne King, 2020
With the British, Soviet and American interventions establishing an interpretive leitmotif for st... more With the British, Soviet and American interventions establishing an interpretive leitmotif for studies of both premodern and contemporary periods, recent historiography of Afghanistan has often approached the region’s history through a paradigm of ceaseless re- bellion or resistance, not to mention one whose identity and dynamics are circumscribed by the borders and geography of the modern nation state . These portrayals characterize Afghanistan as remote, and culturally and politically disconnected from the larger world unless forcibly and briefly integrated. We begin this chapter with the observation that, de- spite dramatic moments of resistance, historically the lands encompassed by, and contig- uous to, the modern nation state played a pivotal role in the formation, maintenance and expansion of a long succession of premodern empires, either those with a center of gravity in Western or South Asia, or within the region itself . Shifting the focus to the arts of domination rather than resistance, this chapter analyzes both the spatial and conceptual armatures (including environmental, urban and architectural, discursive, and ritual tra- ditions) that these empires deployed to integrate their holdings into new imperial systems . After examining the regions’ most ancient and persistent identities, either as integrated into sacred cosmologies or political formulations, the chapter focuses on the Achae- menid, Seleucid, Greco-Bactrian and Kushan empires, and the techniques by which they reshaped and controlled the lands that were understood in antiquity to play a special role in the formation of Iranian identity and religion . It then considers, what I provisional- ly term, the transcultural imperial idioms that emerged from this process of contesting, appropriating or subsuming the architecture of empire . These visual, architectural and ritual traditions owed their formation and development to specific imperial interventions but cannot be located in any single empire discretely, which was the primary utility as a tool of empires who sought to wrest control of regions from their rivals and project power over a lands that were inflected equally by Western, Central and South Asian influences.
A cutting-edge analysis of 2,500 years of Persian visual, architectural, and material cultures of... more A cutting-edge analysis of 2,500 years of Persian visual, architectural, and material cultures of power and their role in connecting the world.
With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), Persian institutions of kingship became the model for legitimacy, authority, and prestige across three continents. Despite enormous upheavals, Iranian visual and political cultures connected an ever-wider swath of Afro-Eurasia over the next two millennia, exerting influence at key historical junctures. This book provides the first critical exploration of the role Persian cultures played in articulating the myriad ways power was expressed across Afro-Eurasia between the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century CE.
Exploring topics such as royal cosmologies, fashion, banqueting, manuscript cultures, sacred landscapes, and inscriptions, the volume’s essays analyze the intellectual and political exchanges of art, architecture, ritual, and luxury material within and beyond the Persian world. They show how Perso-Iranian cultures offered neighbors and competitors raw material with which to formulate their own imperial aspirations. Unique among studies of Persia and Iran, this volume explores issues of change, renovation, and interconnectivity in these cultures over the longue durée.
The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natura... more The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment—everything from royal cities and paradise gardens, to hunting enclosures and fire temples—to form and contest Iranian cultural memory, royal identity, and sacred cosmologies over a thousand years of history. Although scholars have often noted startling continuities between the traditions of the Achaemenids and the art and architecture of medieval or Early Modern Islam, the tumultuous millennium between Alexander and Islam has routinely been downplayed or omitted. The Iranian Expanse delves into this fascinating period, examining royal culture and identity as something built and shaped by strategic changes to architectonic and urban spaces and the landscape of Western Asia. Canepa shows how the Seleucids, Arsacids, and Sasanians played a transformative role in developing a new Iranian royal culture that deeply influenced not only early Islam, but also the wider Persianate world of the Il-Khans, Safavids, Timurids, and Mughals.
THE TWO EYES OF THE EARTH is the first sustained and theoretically rigorous study of the evolutio... more THE TWO EYES OF THE EARTH is the first sustained and theoretically rigorous study of the evolution of a supra-religious yet sacral cross-cultural language of kingship between the late Roman empire and Sasanian Iran (224-642 CE). It investigates the shared ideal of sacred kingship that emerged in the late Roman and Persian empires. This shared ideal, while often generating conflict during the four centuries of the empires' coexistence (224-642), also drove exchange, especially the means and methods Roman and Persian sovereigns used to project their notions of universal rule: elaborate systems of ritual and their cultures' visual, architectural, and urban environments. Matthew Canepa explores the artistic, ritual, and ideological interactions between Rome and the Iranian world under the Sasanian dynasty, the last great Persian dynasty before Islam. He analyzes how these two hostile systems of sacred universal sovereignty not only coexisted, but fostered cross-cultural exchange and communication despite their undying rivalry. Bridging the traditional divide between classical and Iranian history, this book brings to life the dazzling courts of two global powers that deeply affected the cultures of medieval Europe, Byzantium, Islam, South Asia, and China.
SCHOLARSHIP ON THE VISUAL CULTURES of ancient and early medieval Eurasia has recently benefited f... more SCHOLARSHIP ON THE VISUAL CULTURES of ancient and early medieval Eurasia has recently benefited from art history’s renewed interest in questions that transcend political and cultural boundaries.1 Issues of cross-cultural interaction, however, have not enjoyed from art historians working on the ancient and early medieval worlds a level of critical attention commensurate with the number of problems arising from the material. As a result, many of those who work in the arts and cultures of the Mediterranean, Near East, and Asia have found themselves drawn closer together, but without a common vocabulary or debate with which to engage.
The organizing goal of this volume is to highlight these theoretical considerations and provide a forum where art historians of the ancient and medieval worlds can explore these problems of cross-cultural interaction with greater rigor. It does not intend to provide a comprehensive theoretical overview or art historical survey of Eurasian artistic interchange, nor an overarching theory. Rather, it aims to contribute critical perspectives drawn from premodern visual cultures to the wider theoretical conversation. The papers contained herein critically evaluate some of the most important problems encountered in the material: the cross-continental movement and selective appropriation of objects and motifs through trade; the impact of new ways of seeing, being seen, and acting introduced by these objects; the role of art and ritual in negotiations of power among empires; and representations and self-portrayals of ethnicity and gender within and beyond dominant visual cultures.
This essay focuses on the Sasanian dynasty's efforts to create a coherent cosmology to support th... more This essay focuses on the Sasanian dynasty's efforts to create a coherent cosmology to support their imperial project and explores the ways in which Zoroastrian dualism and apocalyptic eschatology were suborned to serve among the Sasanians’ key conceptual frameworks of empire. Compared with all other Iranian dynasties, the Sasanians are rivaled only by the Achaemenids in their obsession with framing and interpreting royal action and identity through the dualistic and eschatological lens of Iranian religion. Although separated by centuries, the commonalities between the royal discourse of the Achaemenid and Sasanian dynasties attest to a long tradition of Persian political dualism and apocalyptic eschatology, which were themselves in intense dialog with religious discourse. Nonetheless, the Sasanians’ strategic leveraging of dualism and eschatology as an imperial tool was a dynamic response to contemporary challenges. They incorporated these concepts into their contemporary political discourse and relied on them during key junctures to provide coherency to both internal conflicts and external threats.
Essay and catalogue entries (marked MPC) for the catalogue of the exhibition Persia: Iran and the... more Essay and catalogue entries (marked MPC) for the catalogue of the exhibition Persia: Iran and the Classical World, eds. J. Spiers, T. Potts and S. Cole (Los Angeles: Getty, 2022)
(Essay and catalogue entries on Parthian silver from the exhibition catalogue Persia and the Clas... more (Essay and catalogue entries on Parthian silver from the exhibition catalogue Persia and the Classical World, Getty Villa)
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Silver.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Rhyta from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 107: Bowl with an Anchor and a Dolphin.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 108: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.1) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 109: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.2) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 110: Rhyton in the Form of a Lion.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 111: Rhyton in the Form of a Stag.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Afterlives of Ancient Rock-Cut Monuments in the Ancient Near East: Carvings in and Out of Time, 2021
This chapter and the larger body of work on which it builds focuses on what I characterize as the... more This chapter and the larger body of work on which it builds focuses on what I characterize as the environmental, spatial, and visual bases of Iranian iden- tity and royal power: that is, landscape, architecture, the built environment, and the ritual activities they hosted. These, I argue, played a complementary, and no less central role in establishing and changing Iranian identity as that of textual or oral discourse. I have argued in several places that royal engage- ment with natural, urban and architectonic space was not merely a reflection or trapping of imperial power, but a fundamental tool by which sovereigns created and transformed royal identity and continually instantiated it with ritual practice.
Common Dwelling Place of all the Gods Commagene in its Local, Regional and Global Hellenistic Context , 2021
The Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene exerted an outsized influence on the volatile world of post-... more The Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene exerted an outsized influence on the volatile world of post-Seleucid Western Asia given its small size and relatively recent independence. While Commagene is now starting to find a place within the Hellenistic Mediterranean, it is only beginning to be fully and meaningfully integrated into the history of the Iranian world. Building on recent work, this chapter thus offers an inquiry into the origins of Commagene’s Persian royal legacy and Iranian religious traditions under Antiochos I, and the cultural and geopolitical contexts that informed their development. Its primary goal is to provide historical nuance for the ‘Persian traditions’ that scholarship has frequently treated as a complete invention or the outgrowth of a monolithic and essentialized Zoroastrianism. It considers the extent to which these traditions grew from an Iranian constituency in place within Commagene since the Achaemenid period or, more likely, arose from a more restricted courtly or dynastic milieu. In so doing, it analyses the dynastic legacy of the Orontids of Sophene and Armenia and the techniques by which they crafted their royal identity and the nature of their impact on Commagene. In particular, it seeks to strike a balance between the epigraphic and archaeological evidence offered by the Antiochos I’s monuments, which provide the most abundant evidence, and what we can descry about the region’s and the dynasty’s earlier traditions from the archaeological record and fragmentary textual sources.
The Getty Villa holds one of the world’s largest collections of luxury silver vessels from the Pa... more The Getty Villa holds one of the world’s largest collections of luxury silver vessels from the Parthian period of ancient Iran (ca. 238 BCE–ca. 224 CE). This article imparts several new insights into one of its most well-known objects: the stag rhyton. Discoveries include a new inscription on the vessel, technical observations from the first endoscopic examination of its interior, and a new correct weight. The main inscription has heretofore never been integrated into art historical discussions. In addition to presenting a new transliteration, transcription, and translation for the main inscription, this article establishes a more precise date for the vessel. The stag rhyton has served as an important point of reference for dating silver vessels from Hellenistic and Parthian Iran in collections worldwide. In several cases, however, the rhyton’s previously accepted date conflicts with other assessments. The new date range presented here may resolve such discrepancies. In addition, the article presents new corrected technical information for the Getty's two lynx rhyta, whose weights were recorded incorrectly in previous publications.
A popular piece written for the International arts magazine Apollo in conjunction with the V&A an... more A popular piece written for the International arts magazine Apollo in conjunction with the V&A and Getty exhibitions on ancient Iran. https://www.apollo-magazine.com
The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCE–600 CE. Edited by Richard E. Payne and Rhyne King, 2020
With the British, Soviet and American interventions establishing an interpretive leitmotif for st... more With the British, Soviet and American interventions establishing an interpretive leitmotif for studies of both premodern and contemporary periods, recent historiography of Afghanistan has often approached the region’s history through a paradigm of ceaseless re- bellion or resistance, not to mention one whose identity and dynamics are circumscribed by the borders and geography of the modern nation state . These portrayals characterize Afghanistan as remote, and culturally and politically disconnected from the larger world unless forcibly and briefly integrated. We begin this chapter with the observation that, de- spite dramatic moments of resistance, historically the lands encompassed by, and contig- uous to, the modern nation state played a pivotal role in the formation, maintenance and expansion of a long succession of premodern empires, either those with a center of gravity in Western or South Asia, or within the region itself . Shifting the focus to the arts of domination rather than resistance, this chapter analyzes both the spatial and conceptual armatures (including environmental, urban and architectural, discursive, and ritual tra- ditions) that these empires deployed to integrate their holdings into new imperial systems . After examining the regions’ most ancient and persistent identities, either as integrated into sacred cosmologies or political formulations, the chapter focuses on the Achae- menid, Seleucid, Greco-Bactrian and Kushan empires, and the techniques by which they reshaped and controlled the lands that were understood in antiquity to play a special role in the formation of Iranian identity and religion . It then considers, what I provisional- ly term, the transcultural imperial idioms that emerged from this process of contesting, appropriating or subsuming the architecture of empire . These visual, architectural and ritual traditions owed their formation and development to specific imperial interventions but cannot be located in any single empire discretely, which was the primary utility as a tool of empires who sought to wrest control of regions from their rivals and project power over a lands that were inflected equally by Western, Central and South Asian influences.
This stuy offers an approach to Iranian inscriptions that expands the focus beyond their basic vo... more This stuy offers an approach to Iranian inscriptions that expands the focus beyond their basic vocations of preserving and disseminating a text. It presents a history of epigraphic practices in Iranian Western Asia from the rise of the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam, noting both ruptures and continuities, and examines the impact of inscriptions on their spatial, architectonic and ritual contexts.
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Books by Matthew Canepa
With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), Persian institutions of kingship became the model for legitimacy, authority, and prestige across three continents. Despite enormous upheavals, Iranian visual and political cultures connected an ever-wider swath of Afro-Eurasia over the next two millennia, exerting influence at key historical junctures. This book provides the first critical exploration of the role Persian cultures played in articulating the myriad ways power was expressed across Afro-Eurasia between the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century CE.
Exploring topics such as royal cosmologies, fashion, banqueting, manuscript cultures, sacred landscapes, and inscriptions, the volume’s essays analyze the intellectual and political exchanges of art, architecture, ritual, and luxury material within and beyond the Persian world. They show how Perso-Iranian cultures offered neighbors and competitors raw material with which to formulate their own imperial aspirations. Unique among studies of Persia and Iran, this volume explores issues of change, renovation, and interconnectivity in these cultures over the longue durée.
https://shop.getty.edu/products/persian-cultures-of-power-and-the-entanglement-of-the-afro-eurasian-world-978-1606068427?variant=43667352355008
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520257276
http://books.google.com/books?id=57szORf0_B0C&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20two%20eyes%20of%20the%20earth&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
The organizing goal of this volume is to highlight these theoretical considerations and provide a forum where art historians of the ancient and medieval worlds can explore these problems of cross-cultural interaction with greater rigor. It does not intend to provide a comprehensive theoretical overview or art historical survey of Eurasian artistic interchange, nor an overarching theory. Rather, it aims to contribute critical perspectives drawn from premodern visual cultures to the wider theoretical conversation. The papers contained herein critically evaluate some of the most important problems encountered in the material: the cross-continental movement and selective appropriation of objects and motifs through trade; the impact of new ways of seeing, being seen, and acting introduced by these objects; the role of art and ritual in negotiations of power among empires; and representations and self-portrayals of ethnicity and gender within and beyond dominant visual cultures.
To order: http://www.asia.si.edu/visitor/arsorientalisVolumeOrder.htm
Papers by Matthew Canepa
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Silver.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Rhyta from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 107: Bowl with an Anchor and a Dolphin.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 108: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.1) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 109: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.2) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 110: Rhyton in the Form of a Lion.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 111: Rhyton in the Form of a Stag.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
provide the most abundant evidence, and what we can descry about the region’s and the dynasty’s earlier traditions from the archaeological record and fragmentary textual sources.
With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), Persian institutions of kingship became the model for legitimacy, authority, and prestige across three continents. Despite enormous upheavals, Iranian visual and political cultures connected an ever-wider swath of Afro-Eurasia over the next two millennia, exerting influence at key historical junctures. This book provides the first critical exploration of the role Persian cultures played in articulating the myriad ways power was expressed across Afro-Eurasia between the sixth century BCE and the nineteenth century CE.
Exploring topics such as royal cosmologies, fashion, banqueting, manuscript cultures, sacred landscapes, and inscriptions, the volume’s essays analyze the intellectual and political exchanges of art, architecture, ritual, and luxury material within and beyond the Persian world. They show how Perso-Iranian cultures offered neighbors and competitors raw material with which to formulate their own imperial aspirations. Unique among studies of Persia and Iran, this volume explores issues of change, renovation, and interconnectivity in these cultures over the longue durée.
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The organizing goal of this volume is to highlight these theoretical considerations and provide a forum where art historians of the ancient and medieval worlds can explore these problems of cross-cultural interaction with greater rigor. It does not intend to provide a comprehensive theoretical overview or art historical survey of Eurasian artistic interchange, nor an overarching theory. Rather, it aims to contribute critical perspectives drawn from premodern visual cultures to the wider theoretical conversation. The papers contained herein critically evaluate some of the most important problems encountered in the material: the cross-continental movement and selective appropriation of objects and motifs through trade; the impact of new ways of seeing, being seen, and acting introduced by these objects; the role of art and ritual in negotiations of power among empires; and representations and self-portrayals of ethnicity and gender within and beyond dominant visual cultures.
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Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Silver.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Parthian Rhyta from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection.” Essay for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 107: Bowl with an Anchor and a Dolphin.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 108: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.1) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 109: Rhyton in the Form of a Lynx.” (86.AM.752.2) Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 110: Rhyton in the Form of a Lion.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
Canepa, Matthew P. “Cat. 111: Rhyton in the Form of a Stag.” Entry for the exhibition catalogue Persia: Iran and the Classical World. Eds. J. Spier, T. Potts, and S. Cole. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.
provide the most abundant evidence, and what we can descry about the region’s and the dynasty’s earlier traditions from the archaeological record and fragmentary textual sources.