The event is organized by Bernhard Palme, Robert Rollinger, and Touraj Daryaee.
The program details:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025

Seminar room 04K100/04M100 (4th floor)

09:00–09:30 Welcome coffee

09:30–09:45 Welcome address

09:45–10:00 Introduction by Touraj Daryaee, Robert Rollinger, and Bernhard Palme

10:00–11:00 Keynote lecture by James Howard-Johnston (Oxford): The role of Egypt in

Khusro II’s conquest of the western world

Coffee break

11:30–12:15 Nikolas Hächler (Zurich): Structures of government and administration in the Eastern

Mediterranean during the 1st half of the 7th century: Reorganisation or back to the status quo

ante?

12:15–13:00 Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Vienna): Plagues, floods, and volcanoes. Interdisciplinary views on

climatic and epidemic dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, 610–630 CE

Lunch break

14:00–14:45 Sebastian Richter (Berlin): “… great affliction has already come upon us and the poor …”. The

turmoil of the Sasanian war as echoed in Coptic documentary sources

14:45–15:30 Phil Booth (Oxford): The Sasanians and the Egyptian church(es)

Coffee break

16:00–18:00 Roundtable on Sasanian written sources and their historical setting:

Milad Abedi (Innsbruck), keynote; Touraj Daryaee (Irvine), Federico Morelli (Vienna), Kai

Ruffing (Kassel), Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck), Bernhard Palme (Vienna)

Buffet (bridging to movie night)

ca. 18:45 3rd EurAsia Movie Night, hosted by Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck)

Agora (2009) | OV with German subtitles. Venue: Audimax @ Ágnes-Heller-Haus

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2025

Seminar room 14 (1st floor)

10:15–11:00 Jehan Hillen (Innsbruck): What is he doing here? A Sasanian Shah on Byzantine Alexandrian

bronzes

11:00–11:45 Nima Asefi (Hamburg): The royal titulature of Khosrow II before and after the conquest of

Egypt: new evidence from Fars

11:45–12:30 Olivia Ramble (Oxford): Soldiers’ Pay: The Pahlavi Papyri within the World of Late Antiquity

Lunch break

13:30–14:15 Khaled Younis (Cairo): Living Histories from Early Islamic Egypt: A Persian and His Fustati Wife

in a Divorce Dispute over Polygamy and Concubinage

14:15–15:00 Arash Zeini (Oxford): The Open Archive of Middle Persian Documents (OpenAMPD)

Coffee break

15:30–16:30 Roundtable on the organization and technical aspects of a database of Pahlavi papyri:

Milad Abedi (Innsbruck), keynote; Touraj Daryaee (Irvine), Arash Zeini (Oxford), Melanie

Malzahn (Vienna), Florian Schwarz (Vienna), Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck), Bernhard Palme

(Vienna)

16:30–17:00 Josef Wiesehöfer (Kiel): Concluding remarks