20 November Professor Caroline Humphrey (Kings College, Cambridge) – Maintaining a Mongolian Buddhist Tradition
6 November Professor Alan Williams (University of Manchester) – The little known famous Zoroastrian Qesse-ye Sanjan
23 October Special event for Friends of the AIIT: Sandra and Bill Martin (Cambridge; Authors of The Art of Omar Khayyam: illustrating Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat) – The Music of the Rubaiyat: a musical exploration celebrating the 150th anniversary of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
25 September Dr Claudia Leurini (IsAIO, Rome) – Aspects of the Manichaean Church in Central Asia
29 May Brigadier Bill Woodburn (Institution of Royal Engineers) – The Bala Hissar of Kabul: revealing a fortress-palace in Afghanistan.
The Bala Hissar, or ‘high fort’, of Kabul was for many centuries the seat of a ruler and played an essential part in state development in Afghanistan. Fortified from perhaps the 6th century AD, the fortress-palace reached its peak under the Mughal emperors in the 16th and 17th centuries, though parts were refurbished later. It was occupied by British troops twice during 19th century wars and is still an Afghan military base. The ruined walls of its upper citadel are an impressive sight but the large lower fort has almost entirely disappeared. Following visits to Kabul, Bill Woodburn has been researching the fort in European archives. The results have revealed the huge fortress-palace that existed in the early 19th century and changes that later took place, emphasising the value to archaeology of military archival material.
15 May In honour of the impending 80th birthday of Robert Skelton (former Keeper of the Indian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum): Professor Vidya Dehejia (Columbia University) – The Sensuous and the Sacred in the Art of India
1 May Rukhshana Nanji (Deccan College, Pune) – The Zoroastrian Migration to India – the archaeological evidence
13 March Professor Jacqueline Filliozat (École Française d’Extreme-Orient, Paris) – Caring for Sinhalese & Indochinese Pali manuscripts
6 March Dario Giorgetti (University of Bologna) – On the Italian Excavations at Mount Mugh and Samarkand
27 February Professor Josef Elfenbein (University of Mainz) – Smerdis: an old Iranian detective story
30 January Abolala Soudavar (Houston, Texas) - Under the Aegis of the Divine Glory: the evolution of Iranian religious and kingly ideology
23 January Ralph Pinder-Wilson Memorial Lecture: Dr Barbara Brend (Independent Scholar) – Arts of Islamic lands: a tribute to Ralph Pinder-Wilson
9 January Professor Antonio Panaino (University of Bologna) – The Italian ethno-linguistic mission in the Yaghnob Valley
