In 2018, the early Sasanian cities of Gūr and Bīšāpūr registered in the UNESCO List of the World's Cultural Heritage. These two cities and their immediate surroundings were laid out in the 3rd century CE in accordance with the wishes of their royal founder. However, in order to underline the legitimacy of his regime, he chose to make use of the architectural forms and iconography of the Achaemenid Empire (6th–3rd century BCE).
In her lecture, Dr. Anahita Mittertrainer (Five Continents Museum, Munich) will use these two cities as examples to explore the extent to which Iran's cultural heritage has been instrumentalized, both in Late Antiquity and in our own day.
The lecture series on"Cultures of Islam 2021: Cultural Heritage" is organized by the Munich Center for the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Central Asia at LMU in collaboration with the Society of Friends of Islamic Art (Gesellschaft der Freunde Islamischer Kunst und Kultur e.V.) and the German-Turkish Association in Bavaria (Deutsch-Türkische Gesellschaft Bayern e.V.).