Speaker:

Sanae Ito, Associate Professor, Research Center for Cultural Heritage and Texts, Nagoya University

Discussants:

M. Rahim Shayegan, Professor of Iranian and the Ancient Near East, Jahangir and Eleanor Amuzegar Chair of Iranian and Director of the Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World and Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions, Chair of the Governance Board of Global Antiquity, University of California, Los Angeles (online)

Upinder Singh, Professor of History, Ashoka University (online)

Tolga Esmer, Professor at the Department of Historical Studies, Central European University (online)

The lecture examines the institutional framework of imperial communication in the Assyrian Empire, focusing on the interdependent roles of messengers, auxiliary personnel, pack animals, and the royal roads that structured the transmission of

information across the empire. Drawing on royal correspondence and inscriptions, it explores how the Assyrian Empire organized the flow of messages between the imperial periphery and the capital. The lecture also considers the logistical

realities of pre-modern overland travel — including the speed and carrying capacity of the animals — as an essential context for understanding how communication actually functioned in practice.