Frantz Grenet: Philhellenism among the Hunnic Elites
This lecture is part 4 of 4 of the 2026 Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series, delivered by Frantz Grenet on the theme, “Ancient Iran and Central Asia: Interactions and Shifting Identities.”
Abstract
Philhellenism among the Hunnic Elites (Fifth to Eighth Centuries CE)
Although the Kušāns construed a (pan-)Iranian identity as evinced by geography, shared historical and cultural backgrounds, imperial discourse, language choice, religious pluralism, and literary culture, some of the post-Kušānites (e.g., the Huns, Hephthalites), however—both in reaction to this model and in order to forge a specific counter-identity—had recourse to Greek cultural practices (including imagery and possibly theatrical performances) to underscore their own identities vis-à-vis the Sasanian/Iranian world. Silverware, the most prestigious and politically controlled artistic product of the period in Bactria-Gandhara (and eventually Sogdiana), offers a broad repertoire of Greek subjects but never any allusion to the Iranian heroic cycle then in the process of formation, as may be seen in extant wall paintings. Some Jewish elites were also part of this cultural orientation. Images of the “Roman wolf” on coins and wall paintings in the seventh and eighth centuries bear witness to a “Philoroman” (in fact, Philobyzantine) tendency, consistent with the attested diplomatic contacts of the time.
After the completion of the Muslim conquest in the second half of the eighth century, the Bactrian and Sogdian languages ceased to be in use (with the exception of Sogdian in merchant colonies and in Christian and Manichaean communities). References to the Hellenistic culture were thereafter limited to the spheres of science and philosophy (as in other parts of the Islamic West). Iranian traditions carried forward by the milieu of the dehqāns were hardly able to retain eastern Iranian specificities: they merged into the al-‘Ajam, Iranian culture lato-sensu, whose literary languages were Arabic and later Persian. Emerging local dynasties forged Sasanian pedigree and did not claim links to earlier local polities (with the exception of Khorezm).
About the Speaker
Frantz Grenet
Collège de France
Frantz Grenet has been Professor at the Collège de France since 2013 and currently holds the chair of History and Cultures of Pre-Islamic Central Asia (Histoire et cultures de l’Asie centrale préislamique).
He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris (1972–1977), focusing on the history and archaeology of Central Asia and the history of Zoroastrianism as his main fields of research. From 1977 to 1981, he was deputy director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (FADA) and participated in the excavations at Ai Khanum under the directorship of Paul Bernard. From 1981 to 2013, he was a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris.
Professor Grenet serves as director of the French-Uzbek Archaeological Mission in Sogdiana (1989–2014, and again since 2021), working mainly at Samarkand. Before taking up his position at the Collège de France, he was professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (1999–2014), holding the chair of Religions of the Ancient Iranian World. Professor Grenet is a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (inducted 2022), a member of the American Philosophical Society (joined 2017), a fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (member of the Advisory Board, 2013–2017), and a board member of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. He is also an honorary citizen of Samarkand (2018). Professor Grenet served as president of the scientific committee of the exhibition Splendeurs des oasis d’Ouzbékistan (Louvre, November 23, 2022 – March 6, 2023).
His main publications include: Les pratiques funéraires dans l’Asie centrale sédentaire de la conquête grecque à l’islamisation (Paris, 1984); A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 3, Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule (Leiden, 1991; with Mary Boyce); La geste d’Ardashir, fils de Pâbak (Die, 2003); and The Golden Journey to Samarkand (selected articles translated into Chinese; Guilin, 2017). He has most recently collaborated with Nicholas Sims-Williams on The ‘Ancient Letters’ and Other Early Sogdian Documents and Inscriptions (2023), and Bactrian Documents IV (2025) as part of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. He has produced seven edited or coedited collective volumes and approximately 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, published in French, English, Russian, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese.