Hellenistic Central Asia Research Network

Hellenistic Central Asia Research Network

Click here for the 2021 lecture series ‘Ancient Central Asia and Beyond’.

The Hellenistic Central Asia Research Network (HCARN) is an international association of scholars conducting research on Central Asia, broadly defined, from the late Iron Age to the Kushan Period.*  HCARN was formed in 2016 and holds regular conferences; Calls for Papers are posted on this site.  There is no formal membership or subscription, and we welcome all with an interest in the field.  We aim to promote collaboration and debate between archaeologists, linguists and historians of Central Asia, whatever their career stage or nationality.

The HCARN Committee is composed of past and future organisers of HCARN conferences:

• Professor Rachel Mairs, University of Reading (HCARN I 2016, Reading) r.mairs@reading.ac.uk
• Dr Gunvor Lindström, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (HCARN II 2017, Berlin) gunvor.lindstroem@dainst.de
• Dr Ladislav Stančo, Charles University (HCARN III 2018, Prague) Ladislav.Stanco@ff.cuni.cz
• Dr Milinda Hoo, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (HCARN IV Freiburg im Breisgau, 2020) milinda.hoo@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de
• Dr Lauren Morris, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (HCARN IV Freiburg im Breisgau, 2020) lauren.morris@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de

For news and discussion, please join our Facebook group or subscribe to our mailing list (subscribers may wish to know that the former is much more active than the latter!).

The site is also home to the Hellenistic Far East Bibliography (2011-), an annual resume of new publications in the field, and its accompanying Numismatic Bibliography (2016-).

* The period between the death of Alexander the Great and the rise of the Roman Empire  is commonly referred to as the ‘Hellenistic Period’ with reference to the Mediterranean world.  In applying the term ‘Hellenistic’ to Central Asia, we make no assumptions about the primacy or otherwise of Greeks and Greek culture, but use the term chronologically, as a catch-all for a fascinating and especially intensive period of cultural interaction across the region from the Iranian Plateau to the Indus, and from the steppe to the Indian Ocean.