KHK Visiting Research Fellow 2009, Independent Scholar, Oriental Archaeology

Sylvia Winkelmann is an independent scholar and honorary curator at the Iran Museum Hamburg. From 2001 to 2005 she was a co-researcher at the Collaborative Research Center “Difference and Integration – Interactions between Nomadic and Settled Forms of Life in the Civilizations of the Old World” sponsored by the German Research Association. Afterward she was research associate at the University of Bologna in 2006 and Gerda-Henkel-Scholar at the University of Mainz from 2007 to 2008. Sylvia Winkelmann has been Vice President of the Deutsch-Afghanische Gesellschaft since its foundation in 2006.

Sylvia Winkelmann has specialized on pre-Islamic Central Asia and Iran with a particular focus on Bactrian iconography and glyptic art. During her time in Bochum she worked on a project entitled “Gods, Heroes and Cults in Bronze Age Central Asia: Reflexion, Transformation and Continuity of Old Near Eastern Beliefs” which aims at is the examination of the representations of the gods and supernatural mixed beings of the Central Asian Bronze Age urban culture and the related cults and rites regarding their origin, development, parallels and their survival into later times.

Education

• Ph.D., Central and South Asian Archaeology, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg, 1986
• Diploma, Oriental Archaeology, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg, 1982

KHK Fellowship

Duration: April 2009 – March 2010
Project: Gods, heroes and cults in Bronze Age Central Asia: reflexion, transformation and continuity of old Near Eastern beliefs