Elspeth Dusinberre

  • Professor of Distinction
  • CLASSICS
Photo of Elspeth Dusinberre
Address

HUMN 390

Affiliated Faculty are not employees of the Center for Asian Studies. Please contact this faculty member at their home department.

Education

Ph.D., Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
A.B., Classical Archaeology, Harvard University

Regional and Thematic Interests

West Asia/Middle East
Literature and the Arts

Profile

Elspeth Dusinberre is interested in cultural interactions in Anatolia, particularly in the ways in which the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE) affected local social structures and in the give-and-take between Achaemenid and other cultures. Her first book, Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis (Cambridge 2003), examines such issues from the vantage of the Lydian capital. Her second book is a diachronic excavation monograph, Gordion Seals and Sealings: Individuals and Society (Philadelphia 2005). 

Dusinberre's third book, Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia (Cambridge 2013), considers all of Anatolia under Persian rule and proposes a new model for understanding imperialism; it was recognized by the James R. Wiseman Award from the Archaeological Institute of America in 2015. Her numerous articles have appeared in various venues, including the American Journal of Archaeology, Ars Orientalis, the Annals of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and Anatolian Studies. She is currently studying the seal impressions on the Aramaic tablets of the Persepolis Fortification Archive (dating ca. 500 BCE), and the cremation burials from Gordion, in addition to other projects at Gordion and Sardis. She has worked at Sardis, Gordion, and Kerkenes Dağ in Turkey, as well as at sites elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean.

Prof. Dusinberre teaches primarily Greek and Near Eastern archaeology at CU-Boulder. She is a President's Teaching Scholar and has been awarded twelve University of Colorado teaching awards.

Selected Publications

2013 Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

2010 “Lydo-Persian Seals from Sardis” and “Ivories from Lydia.” In The Lydians and Their World, edited by N. D. Cahill, 177-190, 191-200. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları.