A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies
Asefi, Nima. 2025. New readings in seven Middle Persian documents from the archive of Hastijan with an edition of Berk. 19. Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology 3(5). 1-19.
This article proposes new readings and interpretations for parts of seven Middle Persian documents first published by Dieter Weber, namely: Berk. 80, Berk. 95, Berk. 43B, Tehran B, LA1, Berk. 149, and Berlin 28. It also provides the editio princeps of Berk. 19.
Abstract
Prof. Yuhan S.–D. Vevaina will open the first episode of the second season of ‘Zoroastrian Conversations’ with Prof. Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London, Co-Chair of the SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute, and Fellow of the British Academy.
Date:
Saturday, 26 April 2025
Time:
9 AM Pacific | 12 Noon Eastern | 5 PM London | 9:30 PM Mumbai
Zoom meeting ID: 863 7776 2243 Passcode: FEZANA.
Zoom and other information: https://fezana.org/conversations/
The conference will once again centre on the Achaemenid Empire and those borderlands that research has only sporadically looked at so far: the Central Asian east, India and the Indian Ocean in the south-east, as well as the steppe regions in the north and north-east. The focus here is on interactions not only in spatial but also in temporal dimensions and thus on the systematic recording of innovations, breaks and continuities.
Organized by Robert Rollinger
Fri 21 November – Sat 22 November, 2025
Innsbruck, Austria
Ágnes-Heller-Haus (Innrain 52a)
Program:
Opening
10:00-10:30 Welcome Address
Brigitte Truschnegg (Innsbruck) | Dean of Studies, Faculty of Philosophy
and History
Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck) | Organizer
Section 1
Chair: Melanie Malzahn (Vienna)
10:30-11:15 Formation of Frontier: New archaeological perspectives on nomadic-sedentary interaction between Lake Aral and Sogdiana (800-500 BCE)
Sören Stark (New York)
11:15-12:00 The Imperial State/Political Formation of the Achaemenids. Nomads, Frontiers and Empires, between Central Asia and the Steppes
Bruno Genito (Naples)
12:00-13:00 Lunch Break
Section 2
Chair: M. Rahim Shayegan (Los Angeles)
13:00-13:45 Local Evolutions of Central Asian Polities during the Achaemenid Period
Johanna Lhuillier (Lyon)
13:45-14:30 The Northern Frontiers in History and Myth
Anca Dan (Paris)
14:30-15:00 Coffee Break
Section 3
Chair: Bernhard Palme (Vienna) & Suchandra Ghosh (Hyderabad)
15:45-16:30 Persians in Northern Gandhara: An Achaemenid Mirage?
Elisa Iori (Venice), co-authors Omar Coloru (Bari) & Luca Maria Olivieri (Venice)
15:00-15:45 The Vine of the King: Monarchic Ideology between the Iranian and Indian Worlds
Claudia Antonetti (Venice)
16:30-17:00 Coffee Break
Section 4
Chair: Florian Schwarz (Vienna) & Josef Wiesehöfer (Kiel)
17:00-17:45 Cultural Heritage as Political Negotiation on the Boundaries of the Achaemenid Empire
Jenn Finn (Chicago)
17:45-18:30 Alexander, India and Western Asia Minor: Imperial Borderlands in Comparison
Julian Degen (Innsbruck)
18:30 Buffet
Saturday, Nov 22
Section 5
Chair: Nina Mirnig (Vienna) & Robin Coningham (Durham)
09:30-10:15 The Mauryas and Achaemenids: Looking afresh at old Theories
Upinder Singh (Sonipat)
10:15-11:00 The Impact of Achaemenid Writing in India and the Linguistic Background to the Aramaic Ashoka Inscriptions
Holger Gzella (Munich)
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
Section 6
Chair: Wu Xin (Bryn Mawr)
11:30-12:15 A Kingdom of Clay (and Parchment): Tracing the Indus Province through Parsa Administration
Gian Pietro Basello (Naples)
12:15-13:00 How Persian was Chorasmia? Reassessing the Achaemenid Imprint in Northeastern Central Asia through Fieldwork
Michele Minardi (Naples)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
Section 7
Chair: Touraj Daryaee (Irvine)
14:00-14:45 Connecting Centres and Borderlands: The Upper Satrapies as Hubs of Routes
Hilmar Klinkott (Kiel)
14:45-15:30 Revolt and Sedition in the Eastern Satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire: An Unsolvable Mystery?
Orestis Belogiannis (Strasbourg)
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
Section 8
Chair: Kai Ruffing (Kassel)
16:00-16:45 Persian Elites and the Achaemenid Northeast: Negotiating Power in the Borderlands
Yazdan Safaee (Innsbruck)
16:45-17:30 Interaction between Central Asia and the Achaemenid Empire
Jan Tavernier (Louvain)
17:30-18:00 Concluding Remarks | Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck)
19:00 Conference Dinner
Peyronel, Luca. 2025. Entre le Tigre et le Zagros. Les recherches archéologiques de la mission italienne de l’Université de Milan dans la plaine d’Erbil (Kurdistan irakien). ArchéOrient – Le Blog.
ArchéOrient-Le Blog is run by members of the « Archéorient » research centre of the University of Lyon 2 (CNRS/University Lyon 2), based at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée (Lyon, France). The blog aims to promote exchanges and to give greater visibility to new scientific information in the field of archaeology and history of societies and environments during the Holocene in the Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and more recently, the Horn of Africa and West Africa. This Blog is open to all representatives of the international scientific community and welcomes contributions in French and English.
The Summer School in Oriental Languages is a unique opportunity to study languages and scripts that are often described as rare, even though they are spoken or have been spoken by millions of speakers, in the form of major and minor courses. This summer school offers top-level teaching and the most recent research findings in Oriental languages and literature, with ECTS credits awarded upon validation.
From the website
The Summer School of Oriental Languages is organised by the University of Lausanne and will be held at the Venice International University (Italy), from 10–19 July 2025.
For more information about the programme, registration, and ECTS requirements visit the website. The deadline for registration is 30 May 2025.
Nabel, Jake. 2025. The verb empoliteuō and Greek citizenship under Arsacid rule. Classical Journal 120(3). 249–276.
The primary translation for the ancient Greek verb ἐμπολιτεύω in several dictionaries is “to be a citizen, have civil rights.” That definition is untenable. The connotations of ἐμπολιτεύω for citizen status are usually indeterminate, but where they are clear, the verb has the opposite meaning and refers to non-citizens rather than citizens. This sense is crucial to the study of Greek citizenship in the Arsacid empire, because ἐμπολιτεύω appears twice in a key passage from Josephus on Greco-Babylonian relations in the poleis of Arsacid Mesopotamia. The verb’s dictionary definition has led some historians to the conclusion that non-Greeks were citizens of these poleis. Along with local evidence in Akkadian, a review of ἐμπολιτεύω‘s appearances in literature and epigraphy suggests the opposite.
Abstract
Nabel, Jake. 2025. The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian relations. California: University of California Press.
At the beginning of the common era, the two major imperial powers of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were Rome and Parthia. In this book, Jake Nabel analyzes Roman-Parthian interstate politics by focusing on a group of princes from the Arsacid family—the ruling dynasty of Parthia—who were sent to live at the Roman court. Although Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, Nabel draws on Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster children. These divergent perspectives allowed each empire to perceive itself as superior to the other, since the two sides interpreted the exchange of royal children through conflicting cultural frameworks. Moving beyond the paradigm of great powers in conflict, The Arsacids of Rome advances a new vision of interstate relations with misunderstanding at its center.
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
Prechtel, Doris & Alexander Pruß (eds.). 2025. Elam und seine Nachbarn. 10. Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 8.–10. April 2019, Mainz. Wiesbaden: Harrassozitz.
Die antike Kulturregion Elam im Südwesten des heutigen Iran war über Jahrtausende hinweg eines der bedeutendsten Zentren politischer Macht und kultureller Entwicklung in Vorderasien. Neben dem benachbarten Mesopotamien spielte es im späten 4. Jahrtausend v. Chr. eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Entstehung und Entwicklung urbaner Gesellschaftsformen im Vorderen Orient. Im späten 3. und dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. war der elamische Staat zeitweise so mächtig, dass seine Herrscher mehrfach entscheidend in die Geschichte Babyloniens eingreifen konnten. Auch nach der Zerschlagung des elamischen Reiches im 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. hat Elam bis in die Zeit des Achämenidenreiches (550–330 v. Chr.) seinen eigenständigen kulturellen Charakter bewahren können. Totz seiner offenkundigen Bedeutung sind Elam und seine Kultur lange Zeit nur von wenigen Spezialisten erforscht worden.
Mit dieser zentralen Kulturregion des Alten Orients und den Beziehungen zu ihren Nachbarn hat sich das 10. Internationale Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft befasst, dessen Beiträge in diesem Band versammelt sind. Der zeitliche Rahmen reicht dabei von der Mitte des 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr. bis in die Achämenidenzeit. Die besondere Betonung der Beziehungen Elams zu seinen Nachbarn soll verdeutlichen, dass Elam nicht nur ein östliches „Anhängsel“ Mesopotamiens war, sondern ein wichtiger Knotenpunkt in einem bis nach Zentralasien, das iranische Hochland und die Golfregion reichenden Netzwerk.
See the table of contents here.
Corfù, Nicolas Assur. 2025. Die Bedeutung des Kranzes im spätantiken Orient: zu Thronbesteigung, Kranzübergabe und Religionen im Sasanidenreich. Basel: Schwabe Verlag.
The wreath first appears in funerary culture in the West and in Egypt. Later, it increasingly came to represent victory as well, deriving from the oriental nose-rope with ring, which was adopted and adapted into the West during Greece’s ‘Orientalizing Period’. In Sasanian iconography, the wreath was re-imported from the West: it now symbolizes victory, honor, or a funerary aspect.
This book examines the wreath in East and West from its first appearance up to Late Antiquity. The author develops a new interpretation of the inscription ANRm-b and offers a novel reading of rock reliefs depicting wreath-giving, using a group-theoretical approach from mathematics: as an act of honoring a deceased predecessor of the commissioning Sasanian ruler.
Martino, Stefano de, Elena Devecchi and Maurizio Viano (eds.). 2024. Eating and drinking in the ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Turin, July 12–16, 2021 (dubsar 33). Münster: Zaphon.
This volume comprises many of the papers presented at the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in July 2021 in Turin. Due to pandemic restrictions the participants of the conference could not meet in person. The encompassing topic “Eating and Drinking in the Ancient Near East” is broad and declinable under different perspectives. Key lectures (1) have been delivered by Cécile Michel on “Gender Aspects in Food and Drink Preparation” and by Theo van den Hout on “Hittite Foodways: The King as the Provider of his People”. Subsequent lectures grouped around the following sections: (2) Food Production, (3.) Resource Management, (4.) Rituality, Banquet and Commensality, (5.) Medicine and Literature, (6.) Philological and Archaeological Researches, (7.) Varia. The lections feature both philological as well as archaeological topics, presenting new insights into well-known texts as well as hitherto unpublished material. Among others Paola Paoletti examines “Butter and Cheese Production in the Third Millennium BCE Babylonia”, Juliette Mas “Funerary Drinking Vessels in Early and Middle Bronze Age Upper Mesopotamian Burials”, while Ludovico Portuese pursues “The Assyrian Royal Banquet”, and Jan Tavernier “The Use of Eggs in Mesopotamian Medicine and beyond”, to list just a few of the 35 articles.
Two contributions investigate topics that are related to ancient Iran: