Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Pepper, Peach, Paradise

    Pepper, Peach, Paradise

    Paul, Ludwig. Pfeffer, Pfirsich, Paradies: Kleines Lexikon deutscher Wörter persischer Herkunft. München: C.H.Beck.

    Wie ist der Algorithmus aus dem Persischen ins Deutsche gelangt? Warum bezeichnet Diwan sowohl ein Sofa als auch eine Gedichtsammlung? Und was hat unser Schal mit einem indischen Sari zu tun oder die Tulpe mit dem Turban? Ludwig Paul erklärt in rund 140 kurzweiligen Artikeln, wie Wörter aus dem Persischen ins Deutsche gewandert sind. Sein glänzend geschriebenes Buch lädt zum Nachschlagen und Schmökern ein und lässt uns eine erstaunliche Dimension der deutschen Sprache neu entdecken.
    Die persische Sprache war einst von der Türkei bis Indien die Sprache der Gelehrten, Dichter und kultivierten Höfe. Sie hat Einflüsse aus indischen Sprachen und dem Arabischen aufgenommen und ihrerseits andere Sprachen bereichert. Das Lexikon beschreibt, auf welchen oft verschlungenen Wegen zahlreiche Wörter und Namen ins Deutsche gelangt sind. Doch es bietet viel mehr als reine Sprachgeschichte: Ludwig Paul versteht es meisterhaft, immer wieder aufschlussreiche Schlaglichter auf die Geschichte der Kulturen zwischen Indien und Europa zu werfen und zu zeigen, wie eng die Wanderung von Wörtern mit dem Transfer von Dingen – Gewürzen, Früchten, Artefakten – und Ideen zusammenhängt.

  • Recovering a Sasanian Royal Book in Early Islam

    Zubani, Alessia. 2026. Recovering a Sasanian Royal Book in Early Islam: The Kitāb Ṣuwar mulūk Banī Sāsān and Its Arabic Transmission. Essays in Long Late Antiquity 1 (1): 73-95.

    This paper explores the recovery and translation of a Sasanian royal book during the early Islamic period, focusing on the Umayyad and early Abbasid eras. It examines the missing Kitāb Ṣuwar mulūk Banī Sāsān (“Book of the Portraits of the Sasanian Kings”), a work that depicted portraits of all Sasanian rulers, their reigns, and deeds. Although it is lost, Arab and Persian historians who had access to Arabic translations commissioned by the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–743) described it in detail.

    The history of this text, as preserved by these Arab and Persian historians, highlights the interest in Iranian political literary traditions during the Islamic period, while also providing valuable information about the work and its earliest observed Arabic manuscript copy. Analyzing this information with contemporary and slightly later manuscripts provides insights into the work’s history as part of a specific political literary tradition and as a material manuscript artifact.

  • Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE

    Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE

    Abbas Alizadeh, with contributions by Hossein Davoudi, Kevin Lidour, Marjan Mashkour, Valentin Radu, Mohammad Reza Rokni, Noshad Rokni, and Shiva Sheikhi. 2026. Lowland Susiana in the Fourth Millennium BCE: Excavations at KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108 (ISACP 2). Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    During two seasons in 2004–2006, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures excavated three major prehistoric population centers in northern Susiana, in the modern-day province of Khuzestan, Iran: KS-04 (Chogha Do Sar), KS-59 (Abu Fanduweh), and KS-108 (Beladieh). The three sites were chosen because of their large size and the prominent role they have played in analyses of the pottery typology, chronology, and politics of fourth-millennium BCE Susiana.

    Most researchers consider the fourth millennium to be a pivotal period in the development of state-level organization in southwestern Iran. During this time, KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108, along with Chogha Mish and Susa, constituted the region’s major polities. Whereas much of the theoretical framework concerning the local origins of sociopolitical complexity has been based on excavated materials from Susa and Chogha Mish, interpretations of KS-04, KS-59, and KS-108 have largely been derived from surface surveys. ISAC’s stratified excavations at these three population centers have now provided important contextual evidence for the processes underlying sociopolitical and economic complexity in prehistoric lowland Susiana.

  • The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology

    The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology

    Catanzariti, Antonietta & Touraj Daryaee (eds.). 2026. The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology. Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianScholarly Press.

    Between the third and seventh centuries CE, the Sasanian Empire became one of the most dominant powers in the ancient world—extending geographically from West to Central Asia—and was the last major power in the region before the Arab conquest in the seventh century. In November 2022, in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art convened “The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology,” a symposium of scholars discussing the latest research on the Sasanian Empire and its rich material culture—from impressive rock reliefs to elaborately designed metal vessels and finely carved seals—and exploring the empire’s legacy beyond its core regions. The symposium underscored how the field has evolved and revealed new areas for future research.

  • The Letters of Mani

    The Letters of Mani

    Gardner, Iain. 2026. The Letters of Mani. A Lost Scripture of the Late Antique World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    • Includes new English translations of all the available texts concerning Mani’s Letters
    • Utilizes the latest research to recover all that can be known about one of the scriptures of Manichaeism
    • A holistic and interdisciplinary approach
    • Features much new or little-known material

  • A Palace Built into a Mountain

    Maghsoudlou, Arvin. 2025. A Palace Built into a Mountain: Exploring the Modes of Audience Interaction and Reception at the Great Ayvan of Taq-e Bustan in Late Antiquity. Ancient West & East 24: 43-67.

    This study revisits the structure, imagery and scale of the Great Ayvan of Taq-e Bustan, employing a phenomenological approach to explore how it interacted with its potential Late Antique audiences. It argues that the monument departed from traditional Sasanian rock reliefs by blending features of landscape reliefs and palatial architecture into a hybrid programme, effectively engaging a diverse audience. The paper analyses how viewer interaction varied with proximity to the ayvan, with a particular focus on the complex and multisensory experience afforded to those granted access inside.

  • Sovereignty in Iran

    Sovereignty in Iran

    Holliday, Shabnam J. (ed.). 2026. Sovereignty in Iran: Challenges to Eurocentrism from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    This book is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaborative project examining sovereignties as a plural concept through the case of Iran. In so doing it challenges Eurocentric assumptions in the Humanities and Social Sciences and covers sovereignty from ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic including the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

    Part One explores sovereignty in ancient Iran by looking at the Elamites through a theoretical lens, the Achaemenids, and the Parthians and Sasanians. Part Two explores how territory relates to sovereignty alongside other dynamics in the Safavid, Second World War, Pahlavi and Islamic Republic periods. Part Three then focuses on competing and co-existing sovereignties in the southern Persian Gulf at the beginning of the twentieth century in Kurdistan and its relationships with Iranian governments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. A non-Eurocentric framework requires the reader to think about co-existing and competing sovereignties with an ‘Area Studies’ lens. This approach moves beyond periodised understandings of history and not only contributes to better understanding Eurocentrism but also enables a greater appreciation of contexts, complexities and agencies.

    (more…)
  • Text and translation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti

    Text and translation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti

    Heindio Uesugi has done it again. Under the supervisory editorship of Adam Alvah Catt, Uesugi has now published an addendum to the second part of his Old Avestan dictionary: a translation and glossed version of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti.

    Uesugi, Heindio (ed.). 2026. Old Avestan dictionary. Addendum to Part II: Text and translation: Yasna Haptaŋhāiti. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.

    For more context on these publications, I recommend the blogs in Language Hat and Language Log.

    This is the draft version of the annotated new translation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (YH) along with that of Yasna 42. We have prepared this translation as an addendum to Part II. We hope to further improve it (along with the corrigenda) when time permits, taking into consideration any feedback we may receive.
    Although arguably less contentious than the Gāthās, the YH is of course not without its share of difficulties. Even where there is general consensus on the basic meaning, the view on the intended nuance, implications, and significance can vary, at times considerably.

    From the ‘Short Introduction’
  • Two unpublished Bactrian documents

    Two unpublished Bactrian documents

    Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2026. Two unpublished Bactrian documents in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. Bulletin of SOAS FirstView. 1–8.

    Bactrian, the principal written language of pre-Islamic Afghanistan, was little known until the early 1990s, when more than 150 contracts, economic documents and letters, together with a few Buddhist texts, were acquired by collectors. Most of these were published by Nicholas Sims-Williams between 2001 and 2012 in three volumes entitled Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan. The present article presents two additional documents which have come to light more recently, a receipt for a sum of ten dirhams and a letter from an otherwise unknown ruler of Rōb, modern Rui in the Hindukush mountains. The text and translation of the documents are accompanied by a discussion of their linguistic and historical significance.

    Abstract
  • East and West (vol. 65)

    East and West (vol. 65)

    The latest volume of East and West contains several interesting articles, some of which deal with aspects of (ancient) Iran.

    • F. Grenet, F. Ory, A Preliminary Note on a Painting from Kuh-e Khwāja in the New Delhi National Museum
    • E. Matin, Reaching the Persian Gulf from the Kur River Basin: Patterns of an Intermittent Connectivity
    • S. Belelli, Contact Change and Dialect Convergence in the Kurdish of Khanaqin
    • E. Morano, E. Shavarebi, Irano-Semitica minora: 1. Gaza, 2. wādī
    • M. Labbaf-Khaniki, The Last Image of the Last King: A Sasanian Scene from the Bāzeh Hūr Fire Temple