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Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Wu Xin'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).
Wu Xin has been working on a book, Persia and the East, that explores the impact of the Achaemenid imperial system its eastern provinces. There are already monographs on the Achaemenid rule in the western half of the empire, such as Anatolia, Egypt, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea region, but there are few publications about the eastern half of the empire, as it is only now possible to study this region thanks to new fieldwork.
She is engaged in ongoing fieldwork in various Central Asian countries and since 2010 she has been the director of the Kyzyltepa Archaeological Project. This fall Wu Xin is teaching a course on the Achaemenid Empire and in the spring she will teach Art and Archaeology of Central Asia.