Heleen W.A.M. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (23 May 1944, in Haarlem – 28 May 2000, in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

), was a Dutch ancient historian, specializing in classical Greek and

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

history. Sancisi-Weerdenburg began her studies in ancient history at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

, graduating in 1967 to research under the supervision of Professor W. den Boer, a specialist in Greek history. For her doctoral thesis she set herself the task, which turned into a perennial theme, of trying to disentangle the complex realities of the

Empire from the distorting web created by

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

literary conventions. To do this, she studied Old Persian, primarily on her own, and Iranian archaeology with Louis Vanden Berghe in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. She received her doctor of letters in

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

from Leiden University in 1980. Having taught first at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...

1975–89, she achieved the Professorship in Ancient History at Utrecht in 1990. She was a pioneering scholar of ancient Greek history and

Persian history The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Step ...

. Her work stressed the importance of returning to the classical authors (including the Greek “father of history,”

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

, and the Athenian playwright

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...

) with fresh critical awareness of the importance of reading them against the backdrop of subtexts and agendas embedded in their complex perceptions of the ancient Persian histories and their 200-year-long empire founded by Cyrus the Great. In the historiography of the classical tradition and its modern elaborations, the ancient

Persian people The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...

s who fought with the Greeks in the so-called Persian Wars became the quintessential Other. Layers of assumptions of Western cultural primacy made it possible to take at face value the words of the Greeks, even when important cues within those sources, combined with primary evidence from the Persian vantage point, cried out for critical reappraisal. Sancisi-Weerdenburg systematically tackled an array of astutely targeted issues in Western traditions on the

Persian empire—including the notion of decadence as a defining feature of ancient

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

n kingship and the notion of the role of harem intrigue as the defining social maneuverability of women in the empire. The themes that became touchstones of the new historical agenda on the Persian empire spearheaded by Sancisi-Weerdenburg invariably resonated with concerns that invited engagement and energetic debate by a stimulating range of scholars. Heleen W.A.M. Sancisi-Weerdenburg died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

at the age of 56 in

, the Netherlands.

Bibliography

Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg was a prolific writer on Achaemenid history with numerous publications in both Dutch and English. Only the most important, are listed here. *J.-W. Drijvers, J. de Hond and H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., “Ik hadde de nieusgiergigheid.” De reizen door het Nabije Oosten van Cornelis de Bruijn (ca. 1652-1727), (Mededelingen en Verhandelingen van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptische Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux,” Leiden 31), Leiden and Louvain, 1997. *A. Kuhrt and H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., Achaemenid History III: method and theory, Leiden, 1988. *H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Colloquium Early Achaemenid History,” Persica 9, 1980, pp. 231–32. *Eadem, “Was there ever a Median empire?” in A. Kuhrt and H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., Achaemenid History III, 1988, pp. 197–212. *Sources, Structures & Synthesis: Proceedings of the Groningen 1983 Achaemenid History Workshop (Achaemenid History Series Vol 1) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Hardcover - Dec. 1, 1987) *The Greek Sources: Proceedings of the Groningen 1984 Achaemenid History Workshop (Achaemenid History Series Vol 2) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, et al. (Hardcover - Dec. 1987) *Method and Theory: Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop (Achaemenid History Workshop Series, Vol 3) by Amelie Kuhrt, et al. (Hardcover - Dec. 1, 1988) *Centre and Periphery: Proceedings of the Groningen 1986 Achaemenid History Workshop (Achaemenid History Workshop Series Vol 4) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, et al. (Hardcover - Dec. 1990) *The Roots of the European Tradition: Proceedings of the Groningen 1987 Achaemenid History Workshop (Achaemenid History Series Vol 5) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Hardcover - Dec. 1990) *Asia Minor & Egypt: Old Cultures in a New Empire (Achaemenid History Workshop Vol 6) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, et al. (Hardcover - Dec. 1991) *Through Travellers' Eyes: European Travellers on the Iranian Monuments (Achaemenid History Worhsop Series Vol 7) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, et al. (Hardcover - Dec. 1991) *Continuity & Change: Proceedings of the Last Achaemenid History Workshop 1990 (Achaemenid History Workshop Vol 8) by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Amélie Kuhrt, and

Margaret Cool Root Margaret Cool Root is Professor of Near East, Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at the University of Michigan. She is an expert on the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid empire of ancient Persia and its interactions with Greece, and has published widely ...

(Hardcover - Dec. 1994) *Persepolis Seal Studies: An Introduction With Provisional Concordances of Seal Numbers & Associated Documents on Fortification Tablets I-2087 (Achaemenid History Workshop Series Vol 9) Eisenbrauns (December 1, 1996)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen 1944 births 2000 deaths 20th-century Dutch archaeologists 20th-century Dutch historians Dutch women historians Historians of the Middle East Historians of Iran Writers from Haarlem Leiden University alumni Academic staff of the University of Groningen Academic staff of Utrecht University Dutch women archaeologists Iranologists Dutch classical scholars