2026 Annual Lecture: Shabnam Nasimi

Monday 19th October 2026

We are delighted to invite you to the Steppe Sisters’ 2026 Annual Lecture, delivered by Shabnam Nasimi: Queens, Poets and Paymasters: The Women of the Ancient and Medieval Persianate World

This lecture recovers the rulers, poets, patrons and paymasters of the ancient and medieval Persianate world, asking what the sources, tablets, coins, monuments and verse actually tell us about women's power, and why so much of it has been written out of the story. Their lives unsettle a common assumption: that women's authority in this region is a modern invention. It is, in fact, a very old inheritance.

Join us online from anywhere in the world, or in person at Durham University for an engaging and important conversation.

📅 13 November 2026, 17:30

📍 D110, Dept of Archaeology, Durham University and Online

👉 Register here to join us online!