The study of the Seleukid dynasty and its multiethnic kingdom stretching from the Aegean over the Levant and Babylonia to the eastern Iranian territories has been one of the core initiatives of WIHS from its inception until Seleukid Study Days IV: Seleukid Royal Women (Montreal 2013, published 2016). The conference series continued until Seleukid Study Days VII: The Seleukid Army (Sopot, Poland, 2019, published as The Seleukids at War, 2024). When the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down international collaboration, the near-monthly Seleukid Lecture Series (2021-2025) kept the loosely-defined Seleukid Study Group together. We are pleased that the Seleukid Study Days are now being revived, with WIHS among its co-sponsors and Utrecht University as its local host.
Although it is no longer true (as it had been 15 years ago) that the Seleukid kingdom is one of the most understudied world empires, the recent uptake in Seleukid studies has maintained a significant blind spot: the political and cultural legacy of the largest Successor Kingdom after Alexander the ‘Great’. Unlike the Achaemenids and Arsakids, the Seleukids have received very little attention in modern scholarship. The aim of this conference is to change this and to open a new research field of Seleukid reception studies that does justice to the empire’s historical and geopolitical significance. The program, which comprises nearly 30 presentations, further information, and contact details can be found on the conference website.
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