Tag: Achaemenid

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Stylistics of Old Persian Royal Inscriptions

Schmitt, Rüdiger. 2016. Stilistik der altpersischen Inschriften. Versuch einer Annäherung. (Veröffentlichungen Zur Iranistik 79). Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW).
The present study makes the first attempt to compile in a systematic manner the figures of speech and other stylistic phenomena attested in the corpus of the Old Persian royal inscriptions. For those texts are different from simple prose in that they show clear traces of a stylization that similarly to using certain words and word forms lend them characteristic features of an artificial language. The phenomena to be treated in that context are presented in transcription according to the author’s text edition (Die altpersischen Inschriften der Achaimeniden, 2009) in form of a list without classifying them according to criteria of sound or those of grammar, lexicon, and syntax. References to comparable phenomena in the related languages (not least also in Avestan) are given only quite rarely in order not to distract the reader’s attention from the Old Persian data. The comparison with Avestan or within the ancient Indo-Iranian languages, i. e. in form of “Comparative Stylistics of Indo-Iranian”, has to be planned only after having finished collecting the evidence of the individual languages in full. Suggesting such a study is one of the intentions of the present book.
Rüdiger Schmitt, from 1979 to his retirement in 2004 Professor of Comparative Indo-European Philology and Indo-Iranian Studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken; born in Würzburg on June 1, 1939; studies from 1958 to 1965 in Würzburg, Erlangen and Saarbrücken, particularly with Manfred Mayrhofer; after publications on Indo-European poetical language, on the Greek and Armenian languages specialized on the ancient Iranian languages, Old Persian epigraphy and, above all, Iranian personal names.
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History and Culture of the Ancient Near East

DiwanBinder, Carsten, Henning Börm & Andreas Luther (eds.). 2016. Diwan. Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Kultur des Nahen Ostens und des östlichen Mittelmeerraumes im Altertum. Festschrift für Josef Wiesehöfer zum 65. Geburtstag. Duisburg: Wellem Verlag.

This volume presents a collection of 32 articles contributed by historians, numismatists and scholar of Ancient Near East history and historiography in celebration of Josef Wiesehöfer 65th birthday.

Table of Contents:
Continue reading “History and Culture of the Ancient Near East”
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Events

The Achaemenids and the Imperial Signature

The Achaemenids and the Imperial Signature: Persepolis – Arachosia – Bactria

A lecture by Wouter Henkelman

 

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Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period

Granerod, Gard. 2016. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine . Walter De Gruyter.

The book argues that the Aramaic documents from Elephantine dating to the Achaemenid period offer not only important glimpses of Judaean religion in the Persian period but that the religion of the Judaeans in Elephantine is among the best historically verifiable cases of Persian period Yahwism. The documents have the potential of functioning as an archive that can revise the canonised image of the Judaean religion in the Persian period.

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Events

OPCA 2016: Conference in Assyriology

The Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology (OPCA) 2016 will take place on April 15th-16th at Wolfson College, Oxford. It will be the fifth annual OPCA. A number of presentations relate to Iranian Studies.

The programme and abstracts are available here.

Source: OPCA 2016 Programme | Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology

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Articles

Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Pasargadae and Persepolis

Aloiz, Emily, Janet G. Douglas & Alexander Nagel. 2016. Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Achaemenid Pasargadae and Persepolis, Iran. Heritage Science (4) 3.

A PDF file of the paper is available online.

Continue reading “Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Pasargadae and Persepolis”
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Mehrgān at Persepolis

Bahadori, Ali. 2015.  Persepolitan ceremonies: The case of Mehrgān. Ancient West & East 14. 51–71.

The celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis is a hypothesis that has never been discussed in detail. The present paper explores evidence for the presence of the Mithra cult at the Achaemenid court and, consequently, for celebration of the Mehrgān at Persepolis.

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Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman

Zehbari, Zohreh, Reza Mehr Afarin & Seyyed Rasul Musavi Haji. 2015. Studies on the structural characteristics of Achaemenid pottery from Dahan-e Gholaman. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 52. 217–259.

The Achaemenid site of Dahan-E Gholaman lies 44 km southeast of Zabol, eastern Iran. Recovered archaeological records and evidence, including residential, public, and administrative-religious structures, indicate pre-planned and intense urbanisation. Unfortunately, the pottery from Dahan-E Gholaman has not been paid the attention it is due, even though pottery from the site has been studied. The studies show that innovation and demands on the pottery industry created local types of beakers, jars, jugs, and bowls and so on. Research on the pottery characteristics shows that the potters of this site were skilled in controlling the kiln temperature and were able to produce high quality wares, while various forms were commonly in use at the site.

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A Hoard of Silver Rhyta of the Achaemenid Circle from Erebuni

Treister, Mikhail Yu.2015. A Hoard of Silver Rhyta of the Achaemenid Circle from Erebuni. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 21 (1), 23-119.

This paper is devoted to a treasure found in 1968. The hoard in “a large jug”, consisting of three silver rhyta, a silver goblet and a fifth, now missing object, was found during construction works at the foothill of the Erebuni citadel. The silver vessels were preserved in a jug in a flattened condition. Every piece of the Treasure is discussed in detail. Descriptions of the vessels are provided in a catalogue section. The results of our analysis do not contradict the suggestion that the Treasure was possibly hidden in ca. 330 bc, thus assigning it a date more or less the same as that of the hoard from Pasargadae, which was also hidden in a clay vessel and most probably, like the Erebuni Treasure, coincided with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.

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The Elamite version of the Behistun inscription

Aliyari Babolghani, Salman. 2015. The Elamite Version of Darius the Great’s Inscription at Bisotun. Introduction, Grammar of Achaemenid Elamite, Transliteration, Persian Translation, Comparison with other Versions, Notes and Index. Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz.
The monumental inscription of Behistun “‘place where the gods dwell”,  engraved on a cliff about 100 meters off the ground, is located along the road that connected the capitals of Babylonia and Media, Babylon and Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). The relief represent the victory of Darius I. the Great, King of Persia over the usurper Gaumāta and the nine rebels. The scene is surround­ed by a great trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
This Behistun inscription is the most important document of the entire ancient Near East and a major key to understand­ing its languages. It alone made it possible to decipher cuneiform writing and thus to open the door to previously totally unknown ancient civilizations.
The inscription was first studied in 1835-37, 1844, and 1847 by Henry C. Rawlinson was the first scholar who studied the inscription in 1835-37, 1844, and 1847; he edited the Old Persian and Babylonian versions of the text himself, while the Elamite version to Edwin Norris (Norris, Edwin. 1855. Memoir on the scythic version of the Behistun inscription. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 15. 1–213). Up to now, for the Elamite text one still has to rely on Weissbach’s edition and translation of 1911 (Weissbach, Franz Heinrich. 1911. Die Keilinschriften der Achämeniden. Leipzig: J.C. Hinriches’sche Buchhandlung), or the German translation of the original Elamite text (Hinz, Walther. 1974. Die Behistan-Inschrift des Darius in ihrer ursprünglichen Fassung. Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran NS. 7. 121–34.), while con­sulting more recent Elamite studies, mostly scattered around in journals. The last edition of the inscription was done by Grillot-Susini/Herrenschmidt/Malbran-Labat  (Grillot-Susini, F., C. Herrenschmidt, & F. Malbran-Labat. 1993. “La version élamite de la trilingue de Behistun: une nouvelle lecture.” Journal Asiatique 281:19-59).
The current book in 268 pages, consists of a transcription of the Elamite version of the inscription together with its Persian translation. It is followed by a chapter on the comparison of the Elamite version with Old Persian,  Babylonian and Aramaic versions of the inscription. A comprehensive chapter on Elamite grammar (Writing System, Phonology, Morphology and Syntax) as well as a Glossary and additional notes and index complete the volume.
About the Author:
Salman Aliyari (PhD) is a Tehran based scholar of Ancient Iranian culture and languages, with special focus on  Achaemenid Elamite language.
In Original:

علی‌یاری بابلقانی، سلمان. ۱۳۹۴. تحریر ایلامی کتیبه‌ی داریوش بزرگ در بیستون. پیش‌گفتار، دستور ایلامی هخامنشی، حرف‌نویسی، ترجمه، مقابله با تحریرهای دیگر، یاداشت و واژه‌نامه. تهران. نشر مرکز.

Alīyārī Babolqāni, Salman. 1394š. Taḥrīr-e ʾīlami-ye katibe-ye dāryuš-e bozorg dar bisotūn. Tehrān: našr-e markaz.