The Akchakhan-kala Wall Paintings: Kingship and Religion in Ancient Khorezm

NOTICE: Admission to the ISAW Lecture Hall closes 10 minutes after the scheduled start time

Akchakhan-kala is perhaps the largest, and has proved to be certainly among the richest, of the sites known in ancient Khorezm. The main occupation at the site has been dated to c. late 3rd century BCE to late 2^nd century CE. Akchakhan-kala is particularly remarkable for its wealth of well- preserved wall paintings and clay sculpture. A recently cleaned painting has revealed important new evidence for Zoroastrian imagery in association with royal ritual and cult practice. This paper will discuss the site and the important implications of the newly discovered monumental image.

--Reception to follow

Alison Betts is Professor of Silk Road Studies at the University of Sydney. She specialises in the archaeology of the Silk Road from the Middle East to China. For her doctoral thesis, she studied the prehistory of eastern Jordan, work with which she is still involved today. In 1992, following the fall of the Soviet Union she began a collaboration with the Karakalpak branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, working at the site of Akchakhan-kala, a project which celebrated its 20^th anniversary last year.  In 2005, she initiated a new collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to study the influences of the Eurasian Bronze Age on the rise of the Chinese state. This work, which is centred in Xinjiang, is ongoing. In 2015, arising out of the work in China, a new project will begin, in collaboration with the University of Kashmir, to study the Neolithic of Indian Kashmir.