Biography
Cohort Year: 2020
Degrees:
B.A., University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2010, Ancient Studies
B.A., University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2010, History
M.A., Hood College, 2018, Humanities
M.A., University of California, Irvine, 2024, History
Advisor: Prof. Touraj Daryaee (primary), Prof. Matthew Canepa (secondary)
First Field: Middle Eastern History
Second Field: World History
Graduate Specialization: Ancient Iran and the Premodern Persian World
Dissertation Title: “Husbandmen and Farmers, Managers and Scribes: Portraits of Daily Lives,
Economies, and Environments in the Iranian World at the end of Antiquity”
Thematic Emphases: Ancient Economies, Microhistories, Numismatics, Environmental and
Agrarian Histories, Archaeological Landscapes, Control and Popular Resistance
Biographic/Research Abstract:
Mark K. Gradoni is an interdisciplinary scholar of the Near East and Central Asia in Late
Antiquity (c. 200-800 CE), focusing particularly upon Sasanian Ērān-šahr. His research
integrates archaeological, art historical, and historical methodologies and applies them to the
study of the socioeconomic and environmental histories of the ancient Iranian world.
Mark holds a M.A. from UCI in addition to a M.A. in the Humanities from Hood College, where
he studied the art history and archaeology of the ancient Near East, as well as a pair of B.A.s in
Ancient Studies and History from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is trained as
a field archaeologist and numismatist and has conducted fieldwork as part of various projects in
the eastern United States, Romania, Jordan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. In 2023, he represented UCI at
the American Numismatic Society’s Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics.
In addition the study of daily life and labor in the ancient world, Mark is interested in the
reception of the ancient Iranian world in contemporary media.
Publications:
Gradoni, M.K. “The Parthian Campaigns of Septimius Severus: Causes, and Roles in Dynamic
Legitimation.” In The Roman Empire during the Severan Dynasty: Case Studies in History, Art,
Architecture, Economy and Literature, edited by Eric C. De Sena, American Journal of Ancient
History Volume 6-8, pp. 3-23. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2013.