Author: Yazdan Safaee

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Empires to be remembered

Gehler, Michael & Robert Rollinger (eds.). 2022. Empires to be remembered. Ancient Worlds through Modern Times. Wiesbaden: Springer.

By applying a comparative approach the volume focuses on a select group of „empires“ which are generally not in the focus of empires studies. They are studied in detail and analyzed due to a strict concept that takes into account real history and reception history as well. Reception history becomes more and more an important element in empire studies although this topic is still often more or less underdeveloped. The volume singles out a series of such “forgotten empires”. It aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach. It develops a general set of questions that help to compare and distinguish these entities. This way the volume intends to examine and to illuminate empires that are generally ignored by modern scholarship.

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Elephantine in Context

Kratz, Reinhard G & Bernd U. Schipper (eds.). 2022. Elephantine in Context: Studies on the History, Religion and Literature of the Judeans in Persian Period Egypt (Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 155). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

The Persian period has long been considered a »dark era« in Israel’s history. For this reason, research has mainly focused on how it is depicted in the Hebrew Bible. A spectacular discovery of archaeological relics and epigraphic sources was hence hardly noticed: the military colony located on the island of Elephantine in the Nile, on the border between Egypt and present-day Sudan. The basic approach of this volume, which documents a three-year Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project, is to break with a research tradition focusing on the Judeans (Jews) mentioned in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine and instead investigate the military colony in a broader historical context also documented by Demotic and Egyptian-hieratic evidence found at Elephantine. The studies presented focus on three main subject areas: society and administration, religion, and literature. They show that historically the island of Elephantine hosted a multicultural society with several interactions between the Egyptians and the other inhabitants, and that it was also an important administrative centre for the Persian authorities.

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Journal

Iran, Volume 60, Issue 1 (2022)

The table of contents of the latest issue (60/1) of the journal Iran:

  • Marta Ameri: Who Holds the Keys? Identifying Female Administrators at Shahr-i Sokhta
  • Soheila Hadipour Moradi & Bita Sodaei: Two Bronze Coins of Alexander Balas Recently Discovered in Luristan (Iran)
  • Bertille Lyonnet: New Insights into Sogdiana during the Classical Period (from the end of the 4th c. BCE to the 3rd c. CE)
  • Ruben S. Nikoghosyan: Where Did the Battle Between Wištāsp and Arǰāsp Take Place?
  • Andrea Squitieri: The Sasanian Cemetery of Gird-i Bazar in the Peshdar Plain (Iraqi Kurdistan)
  • Atri Hatef Naiemi: The Ilkhanid City of Sultaniyya: Some Remarks on the Citadel and the Outer City
  • Soli Shahvar: “Abbas Mirza’s Invitation to Europeans to Settle in Nineteenth-Century Iranian Azerbaijan: Reasons, Causes and Motives”
  • Ladislav Charouz: Naser al-Din Shah’s 1873 Visit to the World’s Fair in Vienna
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Articles

The Intersection of Gods and Kings in Achaemenid Iran

Tuplin, Christopher. 2022. The intersection of gods and kings in Achaemenid Iran. In: Eleni Pachoumi (ed.), Conceptualising divine unions in the Greek and Near Eastern worlds, 45-73. Leiden & Boston: Brill.

From the introduction of the chapter:

I start with two premises. First, among conceptions of divinity those around royal divinity have a strong claim to interest. Second, there is no evidence that the Achaemenid king was categorized or worshipped as a god in the imperial heartland. The (rather few) Greek sources that directly suggested this were wrong. (The ones that spoke of an isotheos king or skated round the issue in other ways are, of course, another matter.) But our business here is with intersections between king and divinity other than simple identification of the king as a god or attribution of his success to the help of a god. Is Achaemenid royal exceptionalism due not just to divine favour but to an inherent divine quality? There has been a growing tendency to perceive mitigations of the king’s human status, even in the heartland. I have discussed these matters in an earlier essay (Tuplin 2017). Here I elaborate on some material that appears more briefly there. I do so in three sections: (1) A tale of two statues. (2) Royal rhetoric in the heartland religious environment. (3) Image, light and daimōn: royal divine aura in Greek texts.

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Pottery Making and Communities During the 5th Millennium BCE in Fars

Miki, Takehiro. 2022. Pottery making and communities during the 5th millennium BCE in Fars province, Southwestern Iran. Oxford: Archaeopress.

This book explores pottery making and communities during the Bakun period (c. 5000 – 4000 BCE) in the Kur River Basin, Fars province, southwestern Iran, through the analysis of ceramic materials collected at Tall-e Jari A, Tall-e Gap, and Tall-e Bakun A & B. Firstly, it reconsiders the stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates of the four sites by reviewing the descriptions of excavation trenches, then presents a new chronological relationship between the sites. The book sets out diachronic changes in the the Bakun pottery quantitatively, namely the increase of black-on-buff ware and the gradual shift of vessel forms. It also presents analyses of pottery-making techniques, painting skills, petrography, and geochemistry and clarifies minor changes in the chaînes opératoires and major changes in painting skill. Finally, the book discusses the organisation of pottery production from a relational perspective. It concludes that the more fixed community of pottery making imposed longer apprenticeship periods and that social inequality also increased.

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Articles

The Elamite Version of XPl?

Delshad, Soheil. 2022. An unpublished stone fragment in Achaemenid Elamite: The Elamite version of XPl? Arta 2022.001.

Description, edition, and identification of an inscribed grey limestone tablet in the reserves of the Persepolis Museum. The author argues that the fragment’s text belongs to the Elamite version of XPl. In addition, some problems of the Elamite version of DNb are discussed.

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A History of Alexander the Great in World Culture

Stoneman, Richard (ed.). 2022. A history of Alexander the Great in world culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 BC) has for over 2000 years been one of the best recognized names from antiquity. He set about creating his own legend in his lifetime, and subsequent writers and political actors developed it. He acquired the surname ‘Great’ by the Roman period, and the Alexander Romance transmitted his legendary biography to every language of medieval Europe and the Middle East. As well as an adventurer who sought the secret of immortality and discussed the purpose of life with the naked sages of India, he became a model for military achievement as well as a religious prophet bringing Christianity (in the Crusades) and Islam (in the Qur’an and beyond) to the regions he conquered. This innovative and fascinating volume explores these and many other facets of his reception in various cultures around the world, right up to the present and his role in gay activism.

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Articles

The Image of the Zoroastrian God Srōsh

Grenet, Frantz & Michele Minardi. 2021. The image of the Zoroastrian god Srōsh: New elements. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 27, 154-173.

Sogdian ossuary from Samarkand, ca. 7th century AD photo: F. Grenet

This paper presents new and decisive evidence relative to the identification of one of the colossal depictions of deities discovered by the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition (KAE) at Akchakhan-kala with the Avestan yazata Sraosha. Besides the therianthropic Sraošāvarez, the explicit Zoroastrian symbol that decorates the tunic of this god, new iconographic details are seen. One is the sraošō.caranā, which is a whip, “the instrument of Srōsh”, held in the hands of one of these “bird-priests” instead of the customary barsom. The symbols are presented and discussed in their historical context.

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Individuals and Institutions in the Ancient Near East

Gabbay, Uri & Shai Gordin (eds.). 2021. Individuals and Institutions in the Ancient Near East: A Tribute to Ran Zadok (Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 27). Berlin: De Gruyter.

This volume honors Ran Zadok’s work by focusing on his sustained interest in Mesopotamian social history. It brings together a rich array of scholarship on ancient names, deities, individuals, and institutions, from Persepolis to the Levant. Building on Zadok’s intellectual concerns, this book includes contributions that expand our understanding of the diverse tapestry of the peoples who inhabited the Ancient Near East.

Among the other interesting contributions, those in the first section of the volume (“The Persian Period”) stand in the discipline of studies related to the history of ancient Iran:

  • Matthew W. Stolper: Numbered Tablets in the Persepolis Fortification Archive
  • Caroline Waerzeggers: The Day Before Cyrus Entered Babylon
  • Stefan Zawadzki: Contribution to the Persian Nobility in Babylonia

See the full table of contents in publisher’s website.

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Journal

Studia Iranica 49 (2)

The second issue of Studia Iranica 49 (2020) is out. For a table of contents and access to individual articles, see below or visit this page.

  • Enrico G. Raffaelli: Day-Name Titles, Content Titles, Mixed Titles. The Different Appellations of the Avestan Yašts 5, 8, 9, 15, 18 and 19
  • Jaime Martínez-Porro: The Written Transmission of the Vištāsp Yašt Ceremony
  • Paola Orsatti: The New Persian Perfect of the kard-astam Type. Materials for a Historical-Linguistic Interpretation
  • Willem Floor: The Gates of Isfahan in the Safavid and Qajar Periods
  • Christian Bromberger: Le statut des femmes au Gilān. Un sujet controversé
  • Comptes rendus