Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran, Art History
School of Humanities

Art and Archaeology of Persia and the Ancient Iranian World; Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, Sasanian empires; Hellenistic Iran and Central Asia; Eurasian late antiquity; cross-cultural interaction; critical theory

For links to publications, current research projects, and further information for prospective graduate students: http://sites.uci.edu/canepa/

Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London

Matthew P. Canepa is Professor of Art History and Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at University of California, Irvine. An historian of art, archaeology and religions his research focuses on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia and the wider Iranian world. Professor Canepa’s research interests center on the co-constituency of the built, ritual, and natural environments in creating and sustaining cultural memory, power, and identity. His most recent book is entitled The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Landscape, Architecture, and the Built Environment 550 BCE – 642 CE (University of California Press, 2018; paperback ed. 2020). It is a large-scale study of the transformation of Iranian cosmologies, landscapes and architecture from the height of the Achaemenids to the coming of Islam. His publications include The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (University of California Press, 2009; paperback ed. 2017), the first book to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the late Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. His recent work focuses on the impact of Iranian visual and spatial cultures on the Afro-Eurasian world; a re-examination of Parthian silver and aristocratic culture; the problem of time and memory in Perso-Iranian cultures. He is the Director of UCI's Graduate Specialization in Ancient Iran and the Premodern Persianate World.

James R. Wiseman Book Award, Archaeological Institute of America (awarded to The Iranian Expanse)

James Henry Breasted Prize, American Historical Association for the best book in English on any field of history prior to the year 1000 CE (awarded to The Two Eyes of the Earth)

Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Landscape, Architecture, and the Built Environment (550 BCE – 642 CE). University of California Press, 2018.

The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. University of California Press, 2009; paperback ed. 2017.

Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction among the Ancient and Early Medieval Mediterranean, Near East and Asia. Ars Orientalis 38. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian, 2010.

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Getty Research Center

American Council of Learned Societies

Council of American Overseas Research Centers

Archaeological Institute of America

Association for Iranian Studies

Directeur d’études invité
L’École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris —2016

Senior Research Fellow
Merton College, University of Oxford —2009

North American Fellow
Deutsche Archäologische Institut —2007

Visual Studies

The Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6443

Last updated
12/10/2021