Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Wu Xin recently gave a lecture on “Imperial Foundations of the Silk Road; Persian Roads and Han Walls” as part of the Pourdavoud Lecture Series.
Wu's research interests cover a broad region: from ancient Mesopotamia, across the Iranian Plateau, towards Central Asia and China. The focus of her research is on how the interactions and connectivity among different cultural groups have affected the formation of the history of the individual regions within their trans-regional networks in the greater Near East, specifically between Iran, Central Asia, and the Eurasian steppe during the apex of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550–330 BCE).
The Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World at UCLA was established in 2017 as the premier research center for the study of ancient Iran, the mission of the Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World is to engage in transformative research on all aspects of Iranian antiquity, including its reception in the medieval and modern periods, by expanding on the traditional domains of Old Iranian studies and promoting cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship.