COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SEMINAR ON IRANIAN STUDIES

Henry Colburn (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Drinking like a Persian: The Archaeology of Achaemenid Drinking: From Egypt to Gandhara

Thursday, December 12, 2019 @5 PM

Faculty House

Abstract

Herodotus famously remarked that the Persians reconsidered while sober every decisions they made while drunk, and vice versa. While this comment was intended to illustrate the differences between Greeks and Persians, it also suggests the social and cultural importance of drinking in the Achaemenid Empire. Notably, the Great King used the royal table as a venue for displaying his unique position in Persian society and as an opportunity for creating dependent relationships with subordinates. He accomplished by this by giving gifts of drinking vessels, especially rhyta and phialai, resulting in these types of vessels becoming markers of prestige. This in turn led to the creation of local imitations of such vessels across the empire. Another distinctive drinking vessel, the ‘Achaemenid bowl,’ was used as a marker of imperial unity in the reliefs of the Apadana at Persepolis. The discovery of rhyta, phialai and Achaemenid bowls in such far flung regions as Egypt and Gandhara indicates the extent to which people in these areas participated in a social hierarchy centered on the royal court and how, in some respects, they even aspired to be ‘Persian.’

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Dr. Henry Colburn is Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The talk will begin at 5:00 pm sharp. Dinner will follow the talk at 6:45 in Faculty House. If you would like to join us for dinner, please contact the seminar’s rapporteur, Navid Zarrinnal (nz2254@columbia.edu) to reserve a place no later than Friday December 6, 2019.

Dinner is a fixed menu buffet, $30 per person, payable by check made out to “Columbia University.”

Faculty House is accessed through the Wien courtyard gates on 116 Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive. View map and directions at
https://facultyhouse.columbia.edu/content/directions

(Please consult the notice posted at the entrance for the room number)