Upcoming Event – Symposium “Sogdians and their Funerary Monuments in Sixth to Seventh-Century China: New Thoughts and Reflections”

Venice, Italy
1314th Dec 2018

The Department of Asian and North-African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and the Confucius Institute at Ca’ Foscari University, are pleased to announce the following symposium,
Sogdians and their Funerary Monuments in Sixth to Seventh-Century China: New Thoughts and Reflections, which will take place on December 13th and 14th 2018, 10:00-18:00 in the Great Hall “Silvio Trentin”, Ca’ Dolfin building, 1st floor, Dorsoduro 3859/A, Venice.

Of the Iranian civilizations of pre-Islamic Central Asia, the one developed in the historical region of Sogdiana stands apart. Archaeological excavations in the ancient territory of Sogdiana and in northern China carried out in the past twenty years, have spurred the interest of scholars from all around the world on Sogdian people, their civilization, their influence on other cultures, and their role in the development of trade along the so-called Silk Road. Seminal conferences and exhibitions have been organized and many influential publications have appeared in the past two decades, but it is time for the academic community to make an overall assessment of the situation and offer new perspectives about Sogdians in their homeland and in China with a special focus on the 6th to 7th century. By engaging with scholars from around the world, this conference will throw new light on the interpretation of motifs decorating Sogdian funerary monuments found in China; recent archaeological discoveries in Sogdiana and China; and on Sogdian culture.

The symposium will also be the opportunity to commemorate the late Boris I. Marshak and Vladimir A. Livšic who widely contributed to this field of studies and whose loss is deeply felt by the academic community.

Participants: An Jiayao (Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences); Bonnie Cheng (Oberlin, Ohio); Matteo Compareti (Shaanxi Normal University); Frantz Grenet (Collège de France, Paris); Moritz Huber (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München); Judith Lerner (New York University); Li Sifei (Independent researcher); Ciro Lo Muzio (Università di Roma La Sapienza) Luo Feng (Ningxia Institute of Archaeology); Pavel Lurje (The State Hermitage Museum); Markus Mode (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg); Shing Müller (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Münche); Alexander Naymark (Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York); Andrey Omelchenko (The State Hermitage Museum); Sabrina Rastelli (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice); Penélope Riboud (INALCO Paris,); Michael Shenkar (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem); Étienne de la Vaissière (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris)

Symposium language: English
The symposium is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Department of Asian and North-African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and the Confucius Institute at Ca’ Foscari University.

For more information, please contact Dr Sabrina Rastelli at sogdians@unive.it