Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards

    The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards

    The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards

    International Meeting
    Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Padova, Italy
    29 September – 2 October 2026

    Twenty-five years after the 2001 meeting dedicated to the Medes and their place in the history of the Ancient Near East, an international group of scholars will gather once again in Padova for “The Medes. 25 Years Afterwards.”

    The meeting will take place in the historic main hall of the Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti and will provide a forum for scholarly discussion and exchange among specialists from different disciplines and methodological traditions.

    A central aim of the meeting is to encourage dialogue between different approaches to the Medes and their historical legacy. Particular attention will be devoted to perspectives from archaeology, Ancient Near Eastern history, Greek and Roman historiography, Iranian and Persian heritage, and modern socio-political concepts and developments.

    Programme

    • Tuesday, 29 September 2026, 4:00 PM
      Welcome Address
      Giovanna Zaniolo — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
      Robert Rollinger — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova / Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
      Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
      Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
      Introduction
      Robert Rollinger — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
    • Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 9:30 AM
      Chair: Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova
      Hagmatāna: An Archaeological Inquiry into the Material Culture of the ‘Median Period’ (Iron Age III)
      Mehrdad Malekzadeh — Iranian Center for Archaeological Research
      Zahra Golmohammadi — University of Münster
      The Archaeology of Mannea
      Kazem Mollazadeh — Bu-Ali Sina University Hamadan
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
      The Historical Geography of Media
      Iraj Rezaei — University of Tehran
      Between Assyria and the Iranian Highlands: the Dinka Settlement Complex and the Problem of the Medes
      Andrea Squitieri — Università degli studi di Padova
      Lunch
    • Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 2:30 PM
      Chair: Jan Tavernier — Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
      Dealing with a Powerful Neighbour: Media and Babylonia at the turn of the 6th century BCE
      Clara Gibert — Université Paris 1 Sorbonne
      The Medes in Aramaic Sources
      Holger Gzella — Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Irene Salvo — Università degli studi di Verona
      The Medes in Classical sources
      Kai Ruffing — Universität Kassel
      Median Revisited: Linguistic Origins and the Spread of Median Loanwords
      Milad Abedi — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Melanie Malzahn — Universität Wien
      Keynote: Iranian, Median, Zagrosian: linguistic variety in Northwest Iran during the first millennium BCE
      Adriano Rossi — Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
    • Thursday, 1 October 2026, 9:30 AM
      Chair: Luigi Turri — Università degli studi di Verona
      Arabs of the east: the Medes in a global perspective
      Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
      New light on Medo-Babylonian campaigning against the Assyrian west
      Alexander J. Edmonds — University of Münster
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Gian Pietro Basello — Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
      The collapse of the Assyrian Empire – global considerations and eastern perspectives
      John MacGinnis — British Museum London & University of Cambridge
      Rethinking Cyrus at the Median Court: The Royal Hostage Tradition Revisited
      Yazdan Safaee — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Lunch
    • Thursday, 1 October 2026, 2:30 PM
      Chair: Sebastian Fink — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Herodotus, Greek Genealogies, and the Succession of Empires
      Julian Degen — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Where were the Seven Walls of Ecbatana? The Medes between Myth & Archaeology
      Touraj Daryaee — University of California at Irvine
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Florian Schwarz — Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
      The Image of the Medes in Early Armenian Historiography
      Yervand Grekyan — National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
      Tribes among Ancient and Modern Kurds
      Nicola degli Esposti — Università degli studi di Bologna
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Simonetta Ponchia — Università degli studi di Verona
      Keynote: TBA
      Giovanni-Battista Lanfranchi — Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere e Arti in Padova
    • Friday, 2 October 2026, 9:30 AM
      Chair: Salvatore Gaspa — Università degli studi di Padova
      Looking for the Medes in Urartian History
      Annarita S. Bonfanti — New York University
      The Construct of Median Art and Archaeology: Media in the Antiquities Market, Historiography and Political Narratives of the 20th Century
      Matthew Canepa — University of California at Irvine
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Omar Coloru — Università degli studi di Bari Aldo Moro
      The Dream of Astyages: Echoes of the Medes in the Western Imagination
      Ian Macgregor-Morris — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      TBA
      Hemati Azandaryani — Bu-Ali Sina University
      Lunch
    • Friday, 2 October 2026, 2:30 PM
      Chair: Sebastian Fink — Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
      Kerkeneš Dağ and the Median Western Frontier
      Andrea Bianchini — Università di Verona
      The Medes and Native Iranian Historical Traditions
      Reza Sh. Zarghamee — University of Saint Andrews, Scotland
      Coffee Break
      Chair: Robert Rollinger — Österreichisches Akademie der Wissenschaften
      CONCLUSION AND FINAL DISCUSSION
      Josef Wiesehöfer — Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
      M. Rahim Shayegan — University of California in Los Angeles

  • Fake Prostration in Late Antique Literature and the Ambiguities of Domination

    Nabel, Jake. 2026. Fake Prostration in Late Antique Literature and the Ambiguities of Domination. Studies in Late Antiquity 10 (3). 265-293.

    Ancient Greek literature transmits two episodes in which a petitioner before a king performs a fake act of prostration. The deceiver creates the appearance of a submissive bow, but he actually executes a dierent gesture unrelated to court protocol—or so he tells himself. A parallel tradition in late antique Jewish literature deploys the same motif: A persecutorial ruler urges a Jewish martyr to perform a fake bow in order to create the illusion of idol worship. Jointly considering these three cases for the first time, this article interprets the collective fake bowing tradition as a late antique meditation on the the atrics of royal power and their ability to coopt resistance. This reading is guided by Lisa Wedeen’s Ambiguities of Domination, which advances a theory of how autocratic regimes employ public ceremonies as instruments of social control. Wedeen argues that author itarians stage spectacles that are widely regarded as preposterous nonsense by their producers and consumers, but that nevertheless prove eective disciplinary mechanisms by inculcating habits of submission. It is of no avail to privately dissent from the mean ing of such ceremonials, as their power comes from the choreography of compliance, not the manufacture of belief. Applied to the fake prostration scenes of late antique literature, Wedeen’s theory enjoins a critical view of the fake bow as a form of resistance to impe rial domination.



  • Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context

    Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context

    Moore, James D. 2026. Aspects of Judean Life. Elephantine in Its Persian Imperial and Administrative Context. Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns.

    Aspects of Judean Life focuses on Elephantine during the fifth century BCE, developing a comprehensive model of Achaemenid Persian imperial governance in Egypt and situating the Judean colony within that framework. It reconsiders the colony at Elephantine not as a band of foreign mercenaries living private lives but as colonial state dependents embedded within Achaemenid systems of land-for-service taxation and imperial administration. Far from isolated, the Judeans emerge as active participants in—and beneficiaries of—the structures of empire.

  • Bulletin of the Asia Institute 32

    Volume 32 (2024-2025) of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute (New Series) has been published.

    Table of contents:

    • Robert Rollinger and Josef Wiesehöfer: Designating the King in the Womb of His Mother: From Assyrian through Sasanian Times
    • M. Rahim Shayegan: Rethinking the Achaemenid World Order: Space, Religion, and Communicative Strategies
    • Fabrizio Sinisi: On the Early History of the Image of Mithra in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands
    • Anca Dan and Frantz Grenet: The Triumph of Dionysus and Heracles on a Gold Tray from Datong (Pingcheng, Capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, 398–494 CE)
    • Samra Azarnouche: The “Ḵosrow Cup”: Looking anew into the Persian Grail
    • Frantz Grenet: Two Newly Identified Šāhnāme Stories in Panjakent Paintings
    • Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani: Iranian Rock Crystal
  • Studies on the maritime, economic, and military history of antiquity

    Studies on the maritime, economic, and military history of antiquity

    Reinard, Patrick, Christian Rollinger, Pascal Warnking, Julian Degen & Mateo González Vázquez (eds.). 2026. Kybernetes. Studien zur Seefahrts-, Wirtschafts- und Militärgeschichte der Antike. Festschrift für Christoph Schäfer zum 65. Geburtstag (Muziris 6). Münster: Zaphon.

    Among other interesting contributions, the following articles may interest the readers of Bibliographia Iranica:

    • Julian Degen: Some Notes on Ship Types and Maritime Mobility in Strabo’s Geography and the Periploi
    • Clemens Steinwender: Überlegungen zur Bedeutung der Schifffahrt im sasanidischen Imperium
    • Robert Rollinger: The Aegean Worlds and the Achaemenid-Persian Empire: Imperial Borderlands and the ‘Persian Wars’

  • Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands

    Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands

    Rollinger, Robert & Degen, Julian (eds.). 2026. Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands. 9th Century BCE – 9th Century CE and Beyond (Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond 1). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    The first volume of the new series Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond comprises a collection of papers whose overarching topic pertains to the study of territories situated beyond direct imperial control. Nonetheless, more subtle and elusive traces of imperial impact can be detected in this geographical area.

    The purpose of this collection is to introduce this expanse as “imperial borderlands”. In addition, it includes a variety of contributions from experts in selected fields. With its broad temporal and geographical scope, ranging from the 1st millennium BC to the end of antiquity and beyond, covering the Afro-Eurasia worlds, the volume presents the first concentrated study on the phenomenon of imperial borderlands.

    For free open access to the volume, click here.

  • Governance in Bactrian Documents

    Governance in Bactrian Documents

    Huseini, Said Reza. 2026. Local government reflected in Bactrian documents. Afghanistan 9(1). 85–103.

    Drawing on an analysis of Bactrian documents produced between the early fourth and the late eighth century, the article shows that local government was the foundation of political structure in Bactria. By focusing on three areas of Guzgan, Rob and Kadagstan, the article demonstrates that these areas had their own rulers who managed them through local administration staffed by local people, who handled social, economic, political and military issues. The authority of these rulers was limited to their areas, and none of them could interfere in other areas. Local government was the most effective way to manage Bactria’s diverse geography and its multicultural populations. It persisted even after Bactria became part of the Persian, Huns, Turks, and Arab Muslim empires’ political systems. It was a model of governance well adapted region’s diverse population and proved far more stable and long-lived than the unitary governments of modern Afghanistan that provoked regional opposition and regularly collapsed.

    Abstract
  • The Pahlavi Codex MK

    The Pahlavi Codex MK

    Hintze, Almut & JamaspAsa, Kaikhusroo Minocher. 2026. The Pahlavi codex MK: Facsimile edition (Iranica 36). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    The manuscript MK of the family collection of Dastur Dr Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa, is the oldest extant Pahlavi codex. Written in 1322 by the Zoroastrian priest and scribe Mihraban Kayhusraw, it offers 38 texts, most of which form part of the genre of Andarz, or Wisdom, literature, while others, such as the Book of Deeds of King Ardashir, the founder of the Sasanian royal dynasty, belong to Middle Persian court literature.
    This volume, edited by Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa and Almut Hintze, offers an Introduction with a detailed description of the physical condition of the manuscript and a survey of its contents. The main part consists of facsimiles of the entire manuscript, with headings and marginal notes identifying individual texts and paragraphs. The book concludes with an index of texts and a bibliography.

    The table of contents is here.

  • Sogdian Christians

    Sogdian Christians

    Sheridan, Daniel . 2026. Sogdian Christians. Networks, books, homilies, and medicine. Turnhout: Brepols.

    After centuries of obscurity, the Sogdian people have once again been recognized as the premier long-distance traders of the famed Eurasian trade routes of late antique and early medieval Eurasia, popularly referred to as the “Silk Roads.” Similarily, a previous Christian association with Sogdians and their language had also been all but forgotten until the archeological finds at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, this study explores some of the results of Sogdian Christians having once moved within a confluence of networks, with connections to the wider Christian world and the transcontinental trading networks of the Sogdians. Furthermore, extant evidence shows the once wide-spread currency of the Sogdian language among Christians throughout Central Asia. Through the case studies of book culture, knowledge transmission, and the healing arts, the prominence of the “Sogdian element” in Christian activities outside of the Roman world becomes readily apparent not just for the history of Christianity but also the histories of Central Asia, China, and others.


  • Technological Traditions in Late Antiquity Dashtestan Ceramics

    Naderi, Sona and Zohreh Zehbari. 2026. Technological traditions in Late Antiquity Dashtestan ceramics: A multiscale analytical approach. Primitive Tider (Special Issue 2026: Espens Festskrift): 147-162.

    This paper presents a multiscale analysis of ceramic technology from the Dashtestan region of southern Iran, focusing on the Late Antique period (approximately 3rd–9th centuries CE). Rather than treating pottery types as fixed cultural markers, the study investigates the organization, transmission, and evolution of ceramic production practices across the period and the regional landscape. The analysis begins by defining technological traits using a standardized set of macroscopic characteristics of pottery sherds. These variables act as proxies for underlying technological choices and ceramic recipes. By combining multivariate similarity analysis (Gower Distance), lowdimensional visualization (UMAP), and community detection (Leiden Clustering), the research identifies nine discrete technological groups of production practices operating within the larger ceramic landscape in the region. Chronological and locational overlays reveal temporal drift and spatial participation within these traditions. This suggests that technological changes were gradual and embedded in regional interaction networks, rather than occurring through breaks or isolated workshop traditions. The results suggest a regionally connected ceramic production system, in which recipes and techniques were shared across many sites.