Empire in the Everyday: Archaeological Investigations of Tsaghkahovit (Armenia) Under Persian Rule (ca. 550-330 BC)

FAIN: RZ-51234-10

Lori Khatchadourian
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)

Excavation, analysis, and interpretation of a site in central Armenia first occupied in the Bronze Age and rebuilt as a town of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BC), exploring the role of conquered communities in maintaining empires. Read Imperial Matters: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires at http://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/detail/13/imperial-matter/

This proposal seeks support for archaeological investigations at a town of the Persian Empire, one of the world's earliest empires that ruled much of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean from 550 to 330BC. This research will take place in the Republic of Armenia, at a site called Tsaghkahovit. In partnership with Armenian archaeologists, our purpose is to study the everyday lives of the town's inhabitants and the workings of hegemonic power, as traced through architecture, pottery and other artifacts. We will examine the ways in which subjects adopted social conventions of the Persian Empire while also incorporating into their daily routines local traditions from their pre-conquest past. This research is important for the contribution it makes not only to the study of ancient Persia, but also to wider inquiries in the humanities into the nature of power within empires, ancient and modern. It also advances efforts to build collaborative ties between US and post-Soviet scholars.

Associated Products

Empire in the Everyday: A Preliminary Report on the 2008-2011 Excavations at Tsaghkahovit, Armenia (Article)
Title: Empire in the Everyday: A Preliminary Report on the 2008-2011 Excavations at Tsaghkahovit, Armenia
Author: Lori Khatchadourian
Abstract: Between 2008 and 2011, the joint Armenian-American project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS) conducted archaeological excavations at the Iron Age settlement of Tsaghkahovit, in central western Armenia. This work built upon research begun in 2005 to closely examine the materiality of social and political life in a rural settlement of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 B.C.E.). Intensive investigations at Tsaghkahovit have revealed the remains of a community clearly enmeshed in select socio-political institutions of the empire, yet one also committed to reproducing and revising the contours of everyday life on the Armenian highlands in its own terms. The site thus invites consideration of the quotidian material and spatial practices of imperial subjects who both sustained, and rendered partial, the expansive reach of Achaemenid sovereignty in the Armenian satrapy. This article reports on recent excavations and offers preliminary interpretation of the findings
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.ajaonline.org/field-report/1714
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: American Journal of Archaeology
Publisher: American Journal of Archaeology

Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires (Book)
Title: Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires
Author: Lori Khatchadourian
Abstract: What is the role of the material world in shaping the tensions and paradoxes of imperial sovereignty? Scholars have long shed light on the complex processes of conquest, extraction, and colonialism under imperial rule. But imperialism has usually been cast as an exclusively human drama, one in which the world of matter does not play an active role. Lori Khatchadourian argues instead that things—from everyday objects to monumental buildings—profoundly shape social and political life under empire. Out of the archaeology of ancient Persia and the South Caucasus, Imperial Matter advances powerful new analytical approaches to the study of imperialism writ large and should be read by scholars working on empire across the humanities and social sciences.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/imperial-matter-ancient-persia-and-the-archaeology-of-empires/oclc/923796005?referer=di&ht=edition
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520290525
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Oakland: University of California Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780520290525
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires (Web Resource)
Title: Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires
Author: Lori Khatchadourian
Abstract: What is the role of the material world in shaping the tensions and paradoxes of imperial sovereignty? Scholars have long shed light on the complex processes of conquest, extraction, and colonialism under imperial rule. But imperialism has usually been cast as an exclusively human drama, one in which the world of matter does not play an active role. Lori Khatchadourian argues instead that things—from everyday objects to monumental buildings—profoundly shape social and political life under empire. Out of the archaeology of ancient Persia and the South Caucasus, Imperial Matter advances powerful new analytical approaches to the study of imperialism writ large and should be read by scholars working on empire across the humanities and social sciences.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/detail/13/imperial-matter/
Primary URL Description: eBook on open access website
Secondary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/imperial-matter-ancient-persia-and-the-archaeology-of-empires/oclc/932302631&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL Description: WorldCat listing

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