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Books

Elam and its Neighbors

Mofidi-Nasrabadi, Behzad, Doris Prechel & Alexander Pruß (eds.).(2018). Elam and its neighbors: Recent research and new perspectives. Proceedings of the International Congress Held at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, September 21-23, 2016 (Elamica 8). Hildesheim: Verlag Franzbecker.

The international congress “Elam and its Neighbors. Recent Research and New Perspectives”, which forms the content of the present proceedings volume, was held at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz from September 21st – 23rd 2016. The idea to hold a congress originated from the recent excavations and fieldworks carried out in different Elamite sites. These new research activities yielded interesting archaeological, philological and historical results which offer new perspectives concerning Elamite studies. The aim of the congress was to provide an opportunity to discuss such new results in order to reflect the research strategy and create impulses for further studies in the future.

Table of contents:

  • Badamchi, H: Law in a Multicultural Society: Akkadian Legal Texts from Susa in Comparative Perspective
  • Krebernik, M: Eine neue elamische Beschwörung aus der Hilprecht-Sammlung (HS 2338) im Kontext alloglotter Texte der altbabylonischen Zeit
  • Mäder, M., Balmer, St., Plachtzik, S., Rawyler, N: Sequenzanalysen zur elamischen Strichschrift
  • Malbran-Labat, F., Roche-Hawley, C: On the Unpublished Contracts from Susa (TS A IX-XV)
  • Mofidi-Nasrabadi, B: Who was ˮdMÙŠ.EREN.EŠŠANA.DINGIR.MEŠˮ? 113
  • Prechel, D: Administration in Haft Tappeh 127
  • Tavernier, J: The Functions of Abrupt Spellings in the Elamite Writing System
  • Abdali, N: Glazed Artefacts in Elam and North-Western Iran: A Common Technology?
  • Álvarez-Mon, J: Puzur-Inšušinak, Last King of Akkad? Test, Image and Context Reconsidered
  • Dinarvand, Y., Rezaloo, R., Ba Ahmadi, H: A Neo-Elamite Site South of Susa (Tappeh Konar)
  • Rashidian, E: Dehno and its Environs. A Geoarchaeological Approach to the Elamite Urban Places
  • Wicks, Y: Elam and its Neighbours: A View from Neo-Elamite Mortuary Remains
  • Zalaghi, A: Digging up the Past: Revisiting the Elamite Underground Vaulted Tombs at Tappeh 497 (KS 53?), Susiana Plain
Categories
BiblioIranica

Statistics for 2018

Just some quick numbers to wrap up 2018: We had a total of 41,504 views on our website, up by 8418 views compared to 2017. In 2018, 22,885 people visited Bibliographia Iranica from 142 countries, the USA leading with 11,363 visitors. We have 1,015 visitors from Japan but only 47 from Iran (perhaps the result of anonymisers?). Sajad Amiri, Shervin Farridnejad, Yazdan Safaee and Arash Zeini together published 172 entries, with “amazon” (20) beating 2017’s “friedrich carl andreas” (6) as the most searched term on the blog. “friedrich carl andreas” came second in 2018 with a total of 13 searches!

As always, the above numbers do not account for the views and shares on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. These are just the website statistics.

Furthermore, our posts were followed 3,573 times from Twitter and 3,427 times from Facebook

Thank you for your continued support and interest in Bibliographia Iranica. We wish you all a happy and healthy 2019.

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Articles

Rivalry and conflicts between Christians and Zoroastrians

Hutter, Manfred. 2018. Rivalität und Konflikte zwischen Christen und Zoroastriern. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 112. 91–104.

The encounter of Christianity with Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian Empire started already in the 3rd century. But it was only since the 5th century that a sizable number of Zoroastrians, mostly from the upper classes, converted to Christianity. This led to reactions by the Zoroastrian clergy against the adherents of the agdēn, the «false» or «bad» religion, as this religion was seen as unfitting to Iranian culture. Thus, Middle Persian texts discuss the necessity to avoid contacts with members of agdēn. This term is not restricted to Christianity, but can also be applied to other religions. It is only from the early Islamic period in Iran that two Middle Persian texts, the Dēnkard and the Škand Gumānīg Wizār, discuss (and refute) Christian teachings more systematically. The reason for this theological discussion about Christianity can be seen in the minority situation which Zoroastrianism faced in the Islamic period.

Categories
Journal

IRANICA ANTIQUA, VOLUME 53

The table of contents of the latest issue (53) of the journal Iranica Antiqua:

Categories
Journal

Hanns-Peter Schmidt (1930-2017) Gedenkschrift

The 6th volume of DABIR is a Gedenkschrift to honour Hanns-Peter Schmidt (1930-2017), an excellent German scholar of Indo-Iranian studies, who mainly worked on the Vedas and the Gāθās, as well as Indian mythology and the Zoroastrian religion.

You can download the whole issue here.

ToC

Categories
Articles

Anti-christological Zoroastrian polemics. Mechanisms of deconstruction (ŠGW 15)

Timuş, Mihaela. 2018. Polémique mazdéenne anti-christologique: Mécanismes de déconstruction (ŠGW 15). Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 112. 105–122.

The present article proposes the analysis of some of the anti-christological arguments to be found at the beginning of the 15th chapter (namely the paragraphs 18–30) of the Zoroastrian polemical treatise Škand Gumānīg Wizār (The Doubt-dispelling Explanation, E. W. West 1887). This treatise was originally written in Middle Persian, but its first version was lost. Nowadays, one works mainly with the reconstruction after the Pāzand (Middle Persian in Avestan characters) version of the text. The article has two parts. On the one hand, the article upholds the hypothesis which states that Zoroastrian anti-christological polemics was done case by case, referring to three groups of Oriental Christians: the Melkites, the Jacobites and the Nestorians respectively. Three main arguments are brought forward. On the other hand, the article provides a description of the logical structure of this polemical attack. It appears that the reasoning follows a syllogism-likpattern, which betrays the influence of Greek logic. It is still a matter of debate whether such influence dates from the Sasanian period and was then passed on to the later Mazdeic exegesis during the first centuries of the Islamic period, or whether it took place after the Arab conquest by the transmission of Muslim theologies and philosophies (eg. the mu’tazilites).

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Books

The Alexander Romance: History and Literature

Stoneman, Richard, Krzysztof Nawotka & Agnieszka Wojciechowska (eds.). 2018. The Alexander Romance: History and literature. Barkhuis.

The Alexander Romance is a difficult text to define and to assess justly. From its earliest days it was an open text, which was adapted into a variety of cultures with meanings that themselves vary, and yet seem to carry a strong undercurrent of homogeneity: Alexander is the hero who cannot become a god, and who encapsulates the desires and strivings of the host cultures.
The papers assembled in this volume, which were originally presented at a conference at the University of Wrocław, Poland, in October 2015, all face the challenge of defining the Alexander Romance. Some focus on quite specific topics while others address more overarching themes. They form a cohesive set of approaches to the delicate positioning of the text between history and literature. From its earliest elements in Hellenistic Egypt, to its latest reworkings in the Byzantine and Islamic Middle East, the Alexander Romance shows itself to be a work that steadily engages with such questions as kingship, the limits of human (and Greek) nature, and the purpose of history. The Romance began as a history, but only by becoming literature could it achieve such a deep penetration of east and west.

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Books

Ancient Chorasmia, Central Asia and the Steppes

Minardi, Michele & Askold I. Ivantchik (eds.). 2018. Ancient Chorasmia, Central Asia and the Steppes (Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24). Vol. 1–2. Leiden: Brill.

Table of Contents:

  • Claude Rapin: “Aux origines de la cartographie: L’empire achéménide sous Darius I et Xerxès”
  • Frantz Grenet: “Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia?”
  • Michele Minardi: “The Oxus Route toward the South: Persian Legacy and Hellenistic Innovations in Central Asia”
  • Fabrizio Sinisi: “Exchanges in Royal Imagery across the Iranian World, 3rd Century BC – 3rd Century AD: Chorasmia between Arsacid Parthia and Kushan Bactria”
  • Gairatdin Khozhaniyazov: “‘Long Walls’ in Ancient Chorasmia and Central Asia”
  • Alison V.G. Betts, Gairatdin Khozhaniyazov, Alison Weisskopf(†) and George Willcox: “Fire Features at Akchakhan-kala and Tash-k’irman-tepe”
  • Fiona J. Kidd: “Rulership and Sovereignty at Akchakhan-kala in Chorasmia”
  • Pavel B. Lurje: “Some New Readings of Chorasmian Inscriptions on Silver Vessels and Their Relevance to the Chorasmian Era”
  • Gian Luca Bonora: “A General Revision of the Chronology of the Tagisken North Burial Ground”
  • Johanna Lhuillier and Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento: “Central Asia and the Interaction between the Iranian Plateau and the Steppes in Late First Millennium BC: Case Study from Ulug-depe in Turkmenistan”
  • Laurianne Martinez-Sève: “Antique Samarkand or Afrasiab II and III: Differentiation, Chronology and Interpretation”
  • Barbara Kaim: “Storage Practices in the Merv and Serakhs Oases of the Partho-Sasanian Period”
  • Irina Arzhantseva and Svetlana Gorshenina: “The Patrimonial Project of Dzhankent: Constructing a National Symbol in the longue durée”
Categories
Books

A Grammar of Pahlavi

Asha, Raham. 2017. Pārsīg Language (The so-called Pahlavi). Parts of Speech, Word Formation, and Phonology. Tehran: Sade Publication.

The present book is, in the first place, a descriptive grammar of the Pārsīg language as far as we have it. It includes morphology and phonology; but it gives no syntax. Whereas the first two parts of the book concern morphology, the last deals with phonology. The book intends to be accessible to those who wish to study the Pārsīg texts as well as those specializing in the study of Perso-Aryan languages.
A forthcoming compendious dictionary will complete this work.

Categories
Articles

The Temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr

Shavarebi, Ehsan. 2018. The Temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr (Southern Iran): Historical Documents and Archeological Evidence. In
Juraj Belaj et al. (ed.), Sacralization of Landscape and Sacred Places: Proceedings of the 3rd International Scientific Conference of Mediaeval Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, 2nd and 3rd June 2016 [Zbornik Instituta za Arheologiju 10], 179-194 , Zagreb: Institute of Archaeology.

This essay deals with the location of the Achaemenid and Sasanian temples of Anāhīd at Estakhr, the capital of Persis/Fārs province in southern Iran. Relevant texts from Achaemenid and Sasanian epigraphic sources, classical literature, and Islamic historical and geographical writings are interpreted, followed by a survey of the archaeological sites at Estakhr and its environs, which have been suggested by other scholars to be in connection with the temples of Anāhīd. In this survey, I will criticise a new speculative hypothesis on the location of the temples and argue where in fact these temples were located.