Christina Chandler is an art historian and archaeologist who specializes in the glyptic arts of ancient Iran and Iraq from the first millennium BCE. She received her BA (2014) in Classics (summa cum laude) and English from the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her MA (2016) and PhD (2021) from the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. Her current research interests focus on the art and architecture of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and its glyptic evidence in particular. She is especially interested in inscribed seals - seals that include both figural imagery and text - and what they reveal about the individuals who used them.
Since 2013, Christina has assisted the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago with the study of seal impressions preserved on administrative documents excavated from the Achaemenid Persian city, Persepolis. Approximately 200 of these seals are inscribed and served as the subject of Christina’s PhD dissertation. As a Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW, Christina will further study these seals in preparation for publishing the first complete catalogue of the inscribed seals from Persepolis.