Lara Fabian

Assistant Professor of Iranian Archaeology

Education

• 2018 Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World
• 2011 B.A., Hunter College, City University of New York, Classical Archaeology
• 2006 B.F.A, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Theatrical Set Design

Areas of Interest

Iron Age through Sasanian Iran and Southwest Asia, mobile pastoralist/sedentary relationships, the South Caucasus (archaeology, history, and historiography), landscape archaeology, economic history, numismatics, historiography of archaeology, with a focus on Russsophone traditions

Profile

I am an archaeologist whose work focuses on Iran and broader Southwest Asia in the Iron Age and later, and particularly the Achaemenid through Sasanian periods. My current research and book project considers the South Caucasus as a nexus of interaction between the Iranian, Mediterranean, and Steppe spheres in this period. I study how people here interacted with and reacted to the pan-regional political structures on their borders, considering state and imperial formations (e.g., the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, and Roman empires) and also mobile pastoralist federations (e.g., the Sarmatians and Alans). My scholarship is informed by historiographic and reception studies on the development of thought about antiquity and the question of Iran in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and post-Soviet Eurasia. As part of this wider research, I have co-directed a collaborative Azerbaijani-American fieldwork project in the Lerik region of Azerbaijan since 2016. Before coming to UCLA, I worked on the “Beyond the Silk Road” ERC project at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Publications

Articles

• “Multifaceted Highlands: The Economy of Armenia and its South Caucasus Context.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. III, edited by S. von Reden, 441–504. De Gryuter, 2023 (forthcoming).
• “Economic Dynamics in the Arsakid Empire.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. II, edited by S. von Reden, 631–646. De Gryuter, 2022.
• Fabian, L. and E. J. S. Weaverdyck. “Economic Actors in the Hellenistic and Roman Empires: The Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. II, edited by S. von Reden, 63–146. De Gryuter, 2022.
• Weaverdyck, E. J. S. and L. Fabian. “Tools of Economic Activity in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: Empires and Coordination.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. II, edited by S. von Reden, 341–422. De Gryuter, 2022.
• Weaverdyck, E. J. S, L. Fabian, L. Morris, M. Dwivedi, and K. Lesse-Messing. “Constituting Local and Imperial Landscapes.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. II, edited by S. von Reden, 301–338. De Gryuter, 2022.
• “Bridging the Divide: Marriage Politics across the Caucasus.” Electrum, special issue, edited by A. Lichtenberger and G. Traina (2021): 221–244.
• “Beyond and yet In-between: The Caucasus and the Hellenistic Oikoumene.” In Common dwelling place of all the gods, edited by M. Blömer, S. Riedel, M. J. Versluys, E. Winter, 357­–397. Steiner, 2021.
• “Albanians and Sarmatians: Overlapping Identities in the Eastern Caucasus.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities, edited by G. R. Tsetskhladze, 641–650. Archaeopress, 2021.
• “Стеклянные сосуды из памятников Восточного Кавказа V в. до н.э. – IV в. н.э.” [Glass vessels from the monuments of the east Caucasus, 5th c. BCE–4th c. CE]. In Археологическое наследие Кавказа: актуальные проблемы изучения и сохранения. XXXI Крупновские чтения, edited by М. C. Гаджиев, 281–283. Мавраевь, 2020.
• “Albania in Greek and Latin Texts: The Use and Utility of ‘Views from the West.’” In From Albania to Arrān: The East Caucasus between the Ancient and Islamic Worlds (ca. 330 BCE–1000 CE), edited by R. Hoyland, 13­­–30. Gorgias, 2020.
• “Palmyra und Hatra – Mehr als Karawanenstädte in der Wüste.” Antike Welt 51, no. 5 (2020): 19–24.
• “The Meanings of Coins in the Ancient Caucasus.” Historische Anthropologie 27, no. 1 (2019): 32­–51.
• “The Arsakid Empire.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. I, edited by S. von Reden, 205–240. De Gryuter, 2020.
• “Russian Perspectives on Eurasian Pasts.” In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies: Vol. I, edited by S. von Reden, 581–618. De Gryuter, 2020.
• Eminli, C.T., L. Fabian, E.Ə. İskəndərov, S. Fişman, S. Nugent, T.T. Hüseynova, and H. Lau. “Antik dövr üzrə Lerik arxeologi ekspedisiyasinin Azərbaycan-ABŞ birgə tədqiqatlarinin ilkin nəticələri (2016-cı il).” In Azərbaycanda arxeoloji tədqiqatlar 2015–2016, 471–477. AMEA, 2018.
• “Moving in the Mountains: GIS and Mapping the Phenomenology of Travel Through the South Caucasus.” In Landscape Archaeology in Southern Caucasia: Finding Common Ground in Diverse Environments, edited by W. Anderson, K. Hopper, and A. Robinson, 23–35. OREA, 2018.
• Fishman, S., J. Eminli, L. Fabian, and E. Iskenderov. “In the Mountains, Between Empires: A First Season of Azerbaijani-American Fieldwork in Lerik.” Expedition Magazine (2017): 47–49.
• “Notes of Material Importance: Archival Archaeology in the South Caucasus.” Archives Journal (2017).
• “Numismatic Communities of the Northern South Caucasus: Geospatial Analysis of 3rd c. BCE–3rd c. CE Coin Finds from Caucasian Iberia and Caucasian Albania.” In Sinews of Empire: Networks of the Roman Near East, edited by E. Seland and H. Teigen, 29–63. Oxbow, 2017.
• “The Starosselsky Collection: Imperial Histories and Cultural currencies.” American Numismatics Society Magazine 14, no.4 (2015): 6–17.

Reviews

• Iberia Caucasica. Ein Kleinkönigreich im Spannungsfeld großer Imperien. By Frank Schleicher.  Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (Forthcoming).
• Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World. By Duane W. Roller. The Classical Outlook 96.3 (2021): 137–138.
• “Prismatic Perspectives on the Pre-Islamic Empires of Persia.” Antiquity 92.364 (2018): 1118–1120.