ERC Advanced Grant for Persia study

Eberhard Sauer, the University’s Professor of Roman Archaeology, has been awarded a very generous ERC Advanced Grant.

These long-term grants are awarded to highly ambitious and pioneering projects, led by distinguished researchers.

Archaeological secrets

The award was made for a collaborative project on ‘Persia and its Neighbours: the Archaeology of the Late Antique Imperial Power in Iran’. This interdisciplinary project will explore the Sasanian Empire, one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching for modern Iraq to Pakistan. Its large-scale military infrastructure, urban foundations and agricultural surplus production promise to shed new light on the reasons for its dominance and longevity (3rd-7th centuries).

Professor Sauer was co-director of a joint team of Iranian and EU-based archaeologists that succeeded in dating the Great Wall of Gorgan, a 195km-long military wall, the most elaborate ancient installation of its kind between central Europe and China, to the 5th/6th century.