Tuesday 23 September 2025, 7pm
AAIA Hostel, Promachou 2, 11742 Makriyanni
The Achaemenid Persian empire resonated as an existential threat in Greek consciousness, both real and imagined, through much of the fifth century BC. Unsurprisingly, people from the east were popular subjects in Greek literature, drama and art. This was a world of irresistible Oriental fabulousness and sumptuous wealth; yet it was also a Persia that the Greeks had confronted violently and vanquished in the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC), providing a key narrative in Athens’ blossoming democratic psyche about the victory of Greek freedom and discipline over Persian oppression and excess.
In this lecture, James Fraser draws on objects that he curated as part of the British Museum’s special exhibition Luxury and power: Persia to Greece (2023), including celebrated loans from the History Museum of Armenia, and the famous Panagyurishte Treasure from Bulgaria.
Dr James Fraser, Director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (East Jerusalem)
Jamie Fraser is Director of the W F Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2016, and published his dissertation as the monograph Dolmens in the Levant in 2018, which received the G. Ernest Wright Award for Best Archaeological Publication. Jamie previously served as Curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum, where he curated the 2023 exhibition Luxury and power: Persia to Greece. He directs an excavation project in Jordan investigating a 5,000-year-old olive oil factory, and has archaeological experience in Greece, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kashmir, Cambodia, Australia and the Solomon Islands
