Dr. Elisa Iori
Dr. Elisa Iori is an Assistant Professor in Archaeology and Art History of Central Asia and India at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. She is an archaeologist specialized in urban archaeology and archaeology of religions in the Indo-Iranian region.
Dr. Elisa Iori was trained as an archaeologist and art historian specializing in the Iranian Plateau and South Asia at the University of Rome La Sapienza and the University of Bologna, from the latter she received a Ph.D. degree in "Cultural Heritage Studies" in 2018. Since 2019 she has specialized in the archaeology of Buddhism at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, applying the theoretical perspectives of "urban religion," "material religion" and "lived religion" to the study of ancient societies in Northwest South Asia.
Dr. Iori has conducted fieldwork in Villa Adriana (Italy), Persepolis (Iran), Mes Aynak (Afghanistan), Barikot and Butkara (Pakistan). Since 2020 she has been deputy director of the ISMEO/Ca' Foscari Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan. From October 2024 she held the three-year Rita Levi Montalcini research programme titled "Archaeologies of Crisis: Urban and Religious Transformations of Northwest South Asia in Late Antiquity."
For a full list of Dr. Iori's roles as director, coordinator, and editor in various projects, see her full CV (in Italian) here.