As we fully enter the conference season, many will be reminded that a “panel” implies varying degrees of cohesion between the different speakers. Conference-goers who attended “Balkh: Transformation of a Sacred City in the Early Islamic Era” at the recent ASPS conference in Sarajevo from September 1-6 witnessed a panel in which all of the speakers had been working together for over two years using entirely different sources in different languages to address a common set of research problems related to the city of Balkh in northern Afghanistan. Continue reading Mother of Cities: The Oxford Balkh History Project