Research Interests

• Art of Silk Roads: art of the stations on the intercontinental trade routes between China and the Mediterranean in the first millennium AD, with articles in press and in progress.
• Sasanian Seal Stones:  A Catalogue of Ancient Seals in UC Collections (book in preparation).
• The Interpretation of Sasanian Art (in "Sasanian Art Beyond the Persian World,") paper contributed to the Vladimir Lukonin Memorial Lecture in Iranian Studies, the British Museum, July 1997, Proceedings to appear in 2000.

Recent Publications

"A Jataka Tale on a Sasanian Silver Plate," Bulletin of the Asia Institute 9, 1997, pp. 99-125

"The First International Conference at the Kizil Cave Site, P.R.C.," Circle of Inner Asian Art, SOAS, Newsletter 6, November 1997, 24-25.

"La Route de la Soie entre l'Iran et la Chine," Iran d'Alexandre à l'Islam, Dossiers d'Archéologie 243, Paris, mai 1999, pp. 20-23

"In Search of the Persian Tiger," Iranica Antiqua 34, (in honor of David Stronach), Gent 1999, pp. 325-332

"Sasanian Art Beyond the Persian World," Mesopotamia and Iran in Parthian and Sasanian Times, Proceedings of a Seminar in memory of Vladimir G. Lukonin (in press)

"Art of the Silk Road," The Splendour of Iran II, Iran University Press, Booth-Clibborn Publishers, London (in press)

"The Sasanian Complex at Bandian," Bulletin of the Asia Institute 12, 1999 (in press)

"Terracotta Figurines from Susa," with S. Goodarzi-Tabrizi, in a volume of articles in honor of Ezat Negahban, Iran University Press, co-ed. A. Alizadeh (University of Chicago, Oriental Institute), Y. Majidzadeh, S. Malek-Shahmirzadeh (in press)

"Designing the Body: Human Proportions in Achaemenid Art", Iranica Antiqua XXIX, Festschrift for Klaus Schippmann, Gent 1994, 169-184.

Awards and Honors (1999)

A New $2.5 Million Bequest to Fund Studies of Iran, to honor Guitty Azarpay.  Created with a bequest estimated at $2.5 million in value, the fund includes a number of components. A three-year Guitty Azarpay Fellowship, to begin this fall, will allow Berkeley to recruit top students focusing on Iranian art and archaeology.   In addition to the Graduate Student Fellowship, in subsequent years, and in perpetuity, the fund will support the following:

• the Guitty Azarpay Visiting Professorship,
• an Iran-Berkeley exchange program for faculty and graduate andpostdoc students,
• acquisition of library materials on ancient Iran,
• conferences and symposia on Iranian and Silk Road art andarchaeology, and
• publications on Iranian art and archaeology.

The fund will be managed by the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Last modified 4 February 2000.