We are pleased to present the first of the two volumes of the ECIS7 proceedings.

European Conferences of Iranian Studies (ECIS) are organized every four years under the auspices of the Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE), a learned international society, which was founded in 1983, with the aim of promoting, developing and supporting Ancient, Middle and Modern Iranian Studies in all subject areas of these fields, including philology, linguistics, literature, history, religions, art, archaeology, philosophy, ethnology, geography, human sciences and jurisprudence.

Following the previous SIE conferences, which were held in Turin (1987), Bamberg (1991), Cambridge (1995), Paris (1999), Ravenna (2003), and Vienna (2007), the seventh conference in 2011 was organized by the Iranian Studies Department of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and was hosted in the historical buildings of the oldest Polish University (established in 1364).

The welcome addresses were delivered by professors: Anna Krasnowolska, Head of the Iranian Studies Department at the Jagiellonian University, Andrzej Mania, Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs, Marcela Świątkowska, Dean of the Philology Faculty, and Carlo Cereti, President of the Societas Iranologica Europaea. Greetings from Prof. Peter Chełkowski of the New York University (a former student of the Jagiellonian) were read in his absence to the participants of the congress, and Prof. Zdzisław Żygulski Jun. of the Princes’ Czartoryski Museum in Cracow gave the opening lecture on works of Oriental art in Polish art collections.

Over 300 participants, not only from Europe, but also from Asia, North America and Australia (30 countries altogether) took part in the Conference which can therefore be considered representative, at least to some degree, of the current trends prevailing in the field of Iranian studies. The topics of papers submitted to previous SIE conferences point to the changing focus of Iranian studies in Europe and elsewhere. It would be fascinating to summarize these changes, perhaps on the occasion of the 10th conference in 2023. While the traditional disciplines (philology, history and religions of the pre-Islamic and classical Islamic periods) are still flourishing and developing, a systematically growing interest in social, anthropological and cultural issues, both historical and contemporary, can be seen. Interestingly, the fields of research especially strongly represented at the 2011 conference in Cracow appeared to be archaeology (dominated by reports from an Iraqi-Italian mission in Kurdistan), numismatics, and Kurdish cultural studies.