UCLA Armenian Studies Welcomes Dr. Areshian

The Armenian Studies department at the University of California, Los Angeles will have Greg Areshian as a guest lecturer for the Spring quarter of 2009. He will be teaching in the archaeology pillar with a class titled Constituting Empire: Armenia and Iran through Millennia. The course will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00-4:30pm. Course name and number is Armenian 188

Shahane Martirosyan
shahanem@ucla.edu

Introducing Greg Areshian:
While most children collect coins, Greg Areshian collected excavated objects as he was growing up in Soviet Armenia. By the time he graduated high school, he had so many collectibles that he felt obligated to donate them to museums. Thus, it was an obvious choice for Areshian to study archaeology as a college student, even though it wasn’t what his parents had planned for him. Regardless, Areshian studied historiography and archaeology at Yerevan State University and received his PhD from the St.Petersburg State University in Russia.

Areshian’s love for historiography and archaeology has led him to collect more than just excavated objects. He has also gathered tens of thousands of books over the years, from which thousands have been donated to the Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology in Armenia and, thousands more to the University of Chicago where he taught in the 1990s. In fact, the school has dedicated a reading room to Professor Areshian to illustrate appreciation for his generosity.

Today, Greg Areshian is a Professor in the Institute of Archaelogy at UCLA. In 1993, Areshian was a visiting professor in the history department which has led him to donate some of his book collection to the University of California library system.

Professor Areshian’s current research is in Tell Mozan, Syria, also known as Urkesh City. The second is Terqa in Mesopotamia, and the research is devoted to figurines. With the Institute of Archaeology of Sciences in Armenia, Areshian is doing excavations in Dvin and Areni. Areni is particularly interesting because there is practically no moisture in the cave, and so the temperature and the dryness has allowed for the fruits and the human brains to stay intact. With assistance from carbon dating, Areshian believes that the findings from the Areni site can give tremendous amount of insight about the Copper Age in Armenia.

Due to his extensive background in archaeology and his concentration in the region of Armenia, the department chair for Armenian Studies, Peter Cowe, invited professor Areshian to teach a course to the Armenian Studies students this spring. Areshian welcomes the idea of teaching in the department, when asked what he thinks of the Armenian students at UCLA, Areshian stated that he finds them to be much more open-minded.

In the course, Areshian hopes to expand the minds of the open-minded students even more by introducing the Armenian and Iranian interdisciplinary history beyond our traditional scope with concrete information from the archaeological sources. He will examine how the Iranian empire was constructed and how the Armenians lived within the empire.

Furthermore, students are more than welcome to study and excavate at Areni this summer. The program is a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the homeland through academic eyes. The University of California Archeological Field School offers 12 units for a summer program in Armenia. For more information on this opportunity please visit http://www.archaeology.ucla.edu.