On Monday 11th November 2024 Dr. Patryk Skupniewicz marked the culmination of his tenure as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wyvern Research Institute with a work in progress paper on a series of gold and silver gilt repoussé plaques in the Wyvern Collection from the Tubo Empire (Tibet), dated to 7th-9th century AD.
The paper presented the research undertaken during Patryk's fellowship at the Institute and the questions the objects had raised during this time. During his talk Patryk focused on issues of facture, iconography, and context, discussing how these might assist in our interpretation of the plaques, and further our understanding of their original function, arrangement, and audience. Questions of cross cultural connections between the Tubo, Sogdian, and Sassanian Empires were central to the discussions that took place following the presentation.
Dr. Skupniewicz received his PhD from Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities, Poland, in 2022. He is the author of several studies on Sasanian armaments and art as well as the aspects of the remnants of Hellenistic art in Asia. He studies the transfer of visual structures and military technology between the cultures of the Eurasian landmass. His research was most recently published in Brill's Companion to War in the Ancient Iranian Empires edited by John Hyland and Khodadad Rezakhani (2024).