Postdoctoral position in East and Central Asian archaeology, art history or paleozoology/-botany
INSTITUTE OF ASIAN AND ORIENTAL STUDIES / CHINESE STUDIES
The Traditional China Chair at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies
of the University of Zurich is looking for a postdoc in East and Central
Asian archaeology, art history or palaeozoology/-botany. Postdoctoral work
will be carried out under the auspices of the Swiss National Science
Foundation (SNSF) project “Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva – Early Eurasian
migratory terms in Chinese and their cultural implications” (PI: Prof.
Wolfgang Behr). The project will investigate Central Asian loan words of
Iranian, Indian, Tocharian and other linguistic origins in Chinese
epigraphical and transmitted texts from early antiquity to the Sui
unification (581 CE). Linguistic results will be compared to evidence from
from material culture and the natural environments with the aim of gaining
deeper insights into the development of the flourishing trade routes
linking China and Central Asia since the onset of writing in China.
As part of the project, a database of Chinese terms with their (putative)
foreign equivalents and material culture correlates will be compiled and
published online. The successful applicant will conduct a thorough
investigation of material traces reflecting contact during the time of the
investigated textual evidence in close coordination with the other three
project participants as well as external collaboration partners.
