Shenkar, Michael. 2017. The Religion and the Pantheon of the Sogdians (5th–8th centuries CE) in Light of their Sociopolitical Structures. Journal Asiatique 305(2), 191-209.
Category: Articles
Faust, Avraham. 2018. Forts or agricultural estates? Persian period settlement in the territories of the former kingdom of Judah. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 150 (1), 34-59.
The territories of the former kingdom of Judah were only sparsely settled during the Persian period, as exemplified by the extreme rarity of domestic structures unearthed in excavations. Viewed against this background, the large number of excavated forts and isolated administrative buildings from this period is remarkable, and they apparently outnumber the period’s excavated dwellings. Not only is this an extremely unlikely situation, but various lines of evidence, pertaining to specific sites as well as to the phenomenon as a whole, render the possibility that all these structures were forts or administrative buildings re-examines implausible. Consequently, this article reexamines the phenomenon within the social landscape of the region in particular, and of the Achaemenid empire in general, in an attempt to embed those unique buildings within the broader demographic and political reality of this time. Given the location of many of the sites and the finds unearthed in them, and in light of the demographic reality in the region and of the broader Achaemenid imperial policy, the article suggests that most of the so-called forts were estates, created in the process of the resettlement of this previously devastated region.
Sinisi, Fabrizio. 2017. A seal imprint from Old Nisa and the (Apollonian) iconography of Mithra. Studia Iranica 46(1). 9–30.
A seal impression from Old Nisa / Mithradatkart bearing the image of a deity is reexamined. It is suggested that the figure is depicted in the guise of Apollo in order to portray the Zoroastrian god Mithra. Other images of Apollonian derivation are discussed to track the iconographic development of the solar traits of Mithra.
Askari Chaverdi, Alireza . 2017. Post-Achaemenid legacy of the Persian Gulf hinterland: Systematic survey of surface remains from Tomb-e Bot, Fars, Iran. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 23(1). 127–150.
The archaeological site of Tomb-e Bot, located in the Mohr County of southern Fars Province, is a major settlement of Arsacid and Sasanid date. The site was selected for detailed investigation from among the 76 sites recorded by the general survey of southern Fars region to provide answers to outstanding questions on ancient Iran, in particular during the period from the Achaemenids to the Sasanids. The survey team systematically collected all visible architectural remains, including capitals with volutes and addorsed animal protomes as well as surface ceramics and attempted to draw and register the whole assemblage of finds. Documenting and analyzing the assemblage revealed that centuries after the Achaemenid demise the Persepolis artistic legacy had run on at the site in religious beliefs and among the local groups, from the Seleucid and Arsacid periods up to the rise of the Sasanids.
Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2017. The so-called ‘Thronfolgerprägungen’ of Ardashīr I reconsidered. In Maria Caccamo Caltabiano, et al (eds.), XV International Numismatic Congress Taormina 2015 Proceedings, Vol. 1, 627–630, Roma-Messina: Arbor Sapientiae Editore.
Strootman, Rolf. 2018. Seleucid Research Bibliography 1870-2017.
Sinisi, Fabrizio. 2017. A seal imprint from Old Nisa and the (Apollonian) iconography of Mithra. Studia Iranica 46(1). 9–30.
A seal impression from Old Nisa / Mithradatkart bearing the image of a deity is reexamined. It is suggested that the figure is depicted in the guise of Apollo in order to portray the Zoroastrian god Mithra. Other images of Apollonian derivation are discussed to track the iconographic development of the solar traits of Mithra.
Categories
Three Papyri Revisited
Weber, Dieter. 2018. Three Pahlavi papyri revisited. Sasanika Papyrological Studies , No. 2.
Weber revisits three Pahlavi papyri from the period of Sasanian occupation of Egypt (619–628 CE).
In this issue of L’Histoire, entitled Les mondes d’Alix and dedicated to the graphic novel series Les voyages d’Alix, specialists of antique history explore various aspects relating to the world and time of the novels. The historian Giusto Traina writes on the Parthians.
Traina, Giusto. 2018. Les Parthes aux marges de l’empire. L’Histoire 6. 66–71.
Categories
Shamans of Ancient Iranian Nomads
Yatsenko, Sergey. 2017. Shamans of Ancient Iranian Nomads: Artifacts and Iconography. In Gheorghiu Dragoş, Emilia Pásztor, Herman Bender, George Nash (eds.), Archaeological Approaches to Shamanism: Mind-Body, Nature, and Culture. 243-262. Cambridge Scholars publishing.
The interpretation of depictions in petroglyphs belonging to the Bronze Age in South Siberia as shamanic ones is debatable. Obviously, cultic attributes belonging to men were not removed from barrows 2 and 5 in Pazyryk. Their series can be compared with complexes (known to ethnologists) belonging to shamans of Iranian peoples. Such elements of practicing sequential shamanic rituals as divination, use of musical instruments, entering into a trance state, summoning patron spirits and their “feeding”, exorcism of evil spirits can be reconstructed.