On 25 January 2020, convened by Dr Harun Yilmaz and Dr Gai Jorayev and organised by Dr Gül Berna Özcan, Dr Katherine Hughes, Dr Gulzat Botoeva and Rosa Vercoe we experienced a day of fascinating talks presented by an international and multitalented group of doctoral researchers. The day began at the Greco-Bactrian (3rd century BCE) temple at Takt-i Sangin (Tajikistan) with its dedication to the Oxus/Amu Darya river by Maria Francesca Melloni of University Ca’ Foscari. Examples of multicultural elements evident in architecture, objects, coins, linguistics at the site mark the start… Read More
Spent the winter break helping my father downsize from a large house to a condo. This combined with my recent move from the US to the UK has caused me to think about the material culture which matters most and which we chose to journey with. Neither my father nor I (in my London shoebox) have space for the accumulation of 60 years of marriage or of inheritances and souvenirs of lives well-travelled and well lived. We both must, without sentimentality, carefully curate the objects we most identify as representations of a… Read More