Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis

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Author:

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre, University of Colorado, Boulder

Published:

June 2003

Availability:

Available

Format:

Hardback

ISBN:

9780521810715

$149.00

USD

Hardback

$45.00 USD

Paperback

Description

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre proposes a fresh approach to understanding the Achaemenid Empire based on her study of the regional capital, Sardis. This study uses archaeological, artistic and textual sources to demonstrate that the two-hundred-year Persian presence in this city had a profound impact on local social structures, revealing the region's successful absorption, both ideological and physical, into the Persian Empire. During this period, Sardis was a centre of burgeoning creativity and vitality, where a polyethnic elite devised a fresh culture - inspired by Iranian, Greek and local Lydian traditions - that drew on and legitimated imperial ideology. The non-elite absorbed and adapted multiple aspects of this culture to create a wholly different profile of what it meant to be Sardian. As well as successfully bringing together information on the Achaemenids, this book is also an excellent contribution to empire studies.

A revolutionary take on the Achaemenid Persian Empire
An excellent contribution to empire studies
A comprehensive study of a city in the Achaemenid Empire

Reviews & endorsements

"...this book brings together a diverse array of evidence and makes a significant contribution to the growing field of Achaemenid Anatolian studies, with an insightful and progressive theoretical approach." Journal of Field Archaelogy

"...Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis is carefully written, methodologically well informed and thoughtfully argued." BMCR

"...Dusinberre's book brings Sardis studies forward in a vital way." BMCR

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Product details

Published: June 2003
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780521810715
Length: 342 pages
Dimensions: 254 × 198 × 28 mm
Weight: 0.9kg
Availability: Available

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Contents

List of figures
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. Sardis in the Achaemenid empire
2. Textual sources and the effects of empire
3. The urban structure of Achaemenid Sardis: monuments and meaning
4. The urban structure of Achaemenid Sardis: sculpture and society
5. Inscriptions: Sardians in their own words
6. Mortuary evidence: dead and living societies
7. Personal signifiers: Sealstones
8. Achaemenid bowls: ceramic assemblages and the non-elite
9. Conclusion: Imperialism and Achaemenid Sardis
Appendices
References
Index.

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About the authors

Author

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre , University of Colorado, Boulder
Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre (PhD, Michigan, 1997) is interested in cultural interactions in Anatolia, particularly in the ways in which the Achaemenid Empire affected local social structures and in the give-and-take between Achaemenid and other cultures. Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis (her first book) examines such issues from the vantage of the Lydian capital, while her third book, Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia (Cambridge University Press, 2013) considers all of Anatolia. Her second book is a diachronic excavation monograph, Gordion Seals and Sealings: Individuals and Society (2005). She is currently studying the seal impressions on the Aramaic tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive (dating ca.500 BCE), and the cremation burials from Gordion. She has worked at Sardis, Gordion, and Kerkenes Dag in Turkey, as well as at sites elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. Professor Dusinberre teaches primarily Greek and Near Eastern archaeology. She has been awarded six University of Colorado teaching awards, the Chancellor's Faculty Recognition Award, and the Faculty Graduate Advisor Award.

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